The much-studied South Selkirk mountain caribou herd is teetering on the brink of extinction.

That discovery this month has focused international attention on the disaster faced by the only herd that roams between the U.S. and Canada, but biologists are warning that the crisis extends to other herds in the south of the province.

The southern mountain caribou population has dropped to about 3,800 animals this year, down from about 4,500 last year, according to the Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative (Y2Y), which is calling for emergency action to protect critical habitat.

“For decades B.C. has failed to protect sufficient critical habitat to even maintain mountain caribou, never mind recover them,” said Candace Batycki, program director for Y2Y.

“Canada has failed in its responsibility under the federal Species At Risk Act to intervene when provincial recovery measures are insufficient.”

The caribou census found that the South Selkirk herd is down to three females from 11 last year and biologists estimate that at least 14 of B.C.’s 54 herds could be in trouble.

Provincial government wildlife biologist Leo De Groot said finding out there were only three females remaining in the South Selkirk herd was a surprise.

“I was hoping we would at least have as many as last year, if not more,” he said.

One animal was known to have died, but there is no clue what happened to the others and it is not yet known whether any of the remaining females are pregnant, he said.

This winter the aim was to put pregnant females into a maternity pen, built with money raised by the Kalispel tribe in Washington state, but the snow was too deep to carry through with the plan, he said.

At least four other southern herds are down to critical numbers and, as the federal and provincial governments face pressure to protect more habitat from logging, road-building and recreational use, some scientists are wondering whether efforts should be concentrated on herds where there appears to be at least a slim chance of success.

Robert Serrouya, director of the Caribou Monitoring Unit at the University of Alberta and a Revelstoke resident, was not surprised at the South Selkirk herd’s imminent demise, because of habitat loss around the U.S./Canada border.

“That herd is facing conditions in the environment that are not suitable for persistence. It would be very difficult at this time to recover that herd,” he said.“You can’t fix the habitat problem overnight; that takes decades.”

“Unlike a few exceptional, rare herds further north where we are actually seeing glimmers of recovery, down there you have permanent land conversion — agriculture and human settlement — so it’s almost impossible to restore farming and range land back to natural forest.”

With limited funds, it would make sense to prioritize recovery efforts, Serrouya said.

De Groot agrees triage is part of the discussion, and said even the idea of transplanting animals from other herds, which has been done in the past in South Selkirk, is not gaining traction because of fears it would be a wasted effort.

“No one is offering up any caribou,” he said.

No simple solution

Problems started last century when explorers and prospectors shot as many caribou as they could. Then, as attitudes about an unending supply of wildlife shifted, caribou were faced with forest harvesting moving from the valleys to high elevations, meaning wolves, cougars and bears moved into mountain caribou habitat to follow the deer, elk and moose that thrived in the clearcuts.

Caribou are an easy catch as they are not as skittish as deer and don’t kick as hard as moose. Given their slow rate of breeding, the results can be devastating, De Groot said.

In addition to predation, mountain or deep snow caribou need to survive the winter by eating lichen from old-growth trees, meaning newly planted forests cannot support them.

Biologists hoped that with predator control, such as the controversial wolf cull, an increase in moose hunting and maternal pens to protect pregnant females and new calves, caribou herds could survive until forests regenerate, but that is now unlikely for the South Selkirk herd.

“We have made huge advances in habitat protection since 2007 and we now have 80 to 90 per cent of their core habitat protected from future logging, but we are still dealing with the legacy of previous logging. The trees don’t grow that fast and it takes decades for the clearcuts to grow in so that they are not attracting the elk, moose and deer,” De Groot said.

“We had hoped that, maybe, if we could get the caribou through the next decades, these cutblocks would have grown back.”

Ongoing activity in critical habitat

Some people doubt whether habitat protection has been enforced and Batycki, pointing to voluntary industry habitat protection measures in the Peace area, wants an interim moratorium on industrial activity in critical habitat while governments sort out their recovery plans.

“The federal government has the power to do that,” she said.

Gwen Bridge of Yellowstone to Yukon said mapping and analysis clearly shows that logging and road building has been ongoing in critical habitat, even in areas that were supposedly protected through the 2007 plan.

The herds are also facing increased stress from recreational users, Bridge said.

“New proposals for extensive helicopter-based recreation on the South Purcells are illustrative of the many stresses facing caribou in southeast B.C.,” she said.

DeGroot agrees recreational use of the area is a problem as caribou move away from disturbance and, in winter, that movement takes energy, using precious body fat, and tends to move the animals through avalanche territory, he said.

One of the few bright spots in the mountain caribou world is the Klinse-Za herd, which was down to 36 animals when consulting biologist Scott McNay, of Wildlife Infometrics Inc., started working with the Saulteau and West Moberly First Nations in 2013.

The herd has now doubled in size through the use of maternity pens with 24-hour-a-day shepherds, habitat protection, restoration of forest cover, blocking access to predators and wolf removal.

“We thought the herd was going to be extirpated in two years…and the reason that this is working here is that we are throwing everything at the recovery effort. It’s a slow process, but it’s working,” McNay said.

But recovery efforts are expensive and, province-wide, much will come down to economic constraints and whether there is social will, McNay said.

“First I think we have to prove that in at least one case we can restore a caribou herd and it hasn’t been done yet,” McNay said.

If all subspecies of caribou in B.C. are counted, there are about 19,000 animals, down from about 40,000 in the early 1900s, said Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations Minister Doug Donaldson.

“We need to do whatever we can to help enhance and recover caribou habitat to rebuild the numbers of this iconic species,” he said at B.C. Wildlife Federation’s annual conference, when he announced a $2-million grant to the Habitat Conservation Trust Foundation to help restore caribou habitat and reduce predation through reforestation, fencing and changing sight lines.

Up to $50 million over five years has been slotted for the province’s caribou recovery program and the Alberta government has announced $85 million over the next five years for caribou habitat restoration.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

For decades, the ‘battle of Alberta’ has alluded to the intense rivalry between Calgary and Edmonton, especially on the ice or the football field.

“The worst way to engage Edmontonians is to tell them how things are done in Calgary,” wrote Harvey Locke in a piece titled “The Two Albertas” for the Literary Review of Canada.

But as demographics shift, there’s a different kind of battle of Alberta brewing, one that doesn’t divide people along municipal boundaries. And that battle has elicited boycotts, harassment campaigns and even death threats.

“I think there are multiple Albertas and multiple identities … at play in terms of the political future of the province,” said David Coletto, CEO of Abacus Data.

There’s long been an urban vs. rural divide in Alberta and that gap is widening, Coletto says. But there’s also been an influx of young people into the province, particularly to Edmonton and Calgary.

“There’s a generational divide that’s growing,” Coletto said.

Yet despite deep divisions within Alberta, Albertans are often viewed monolithically by the rest of Canada.

“Albertans will unite to defend their economic freedom and autonomy,” Locke wrote. “They will put aside any difference to avoid being told what to do by Central Canada.”

One need look no further than the current Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline dispute with B.C. to see evidence of that. But, although Albertans may appear to rally together from time to time, they are far from a singular entity when it comes to the environment.

Environmental campaigns draw violent threats

The latest skirmish in the new battle of Alberta broke out in late January over an event called Hops and Headwaters hosted at a brewery in Edmonton. The event was in support of a campaign to protect the Bighorn Backcountry, a region in the province’s foothills home to the headwaters of the North Saskatchewan River, which provides drinking water to the citizens of Edmonton.

“Water being the largest ingredient in our beer, it’s an issue and something that’s very near and dear to our hearts and important to us,” Bent Stick Brewery co-founder Scott Kendall told City TV News.

Seems fairly reasonable, right? Nope. The brewery was struck with dozens of one-star reviews on its Facebook page for supporting the headwaters protection campaign.

Reviews like this one: “I will not support any company that supports foreign-funded groups such as Y2Y [Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative] and Love Your Headwaters that strive to limit my ability to responsibly access and enjoy the beautiful public lands in Alberta.”

And it didn’t stop at Facebook comments. By the time the event date rolled around, there were enough threats made on social media to warrant hiring four private security guards.

Why were some Albertans so hot under the collar? Because of a proposal to limit off-highway vehicle use in certain areas.

“My organization never had a security protocol until we started working on this issue,” said Stephen Legault, a program director for Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative (Y2Y).

Up until now, parts of the Bighorn Backcountry have been somewhat of a free-for-all when it comes to off-highway vehicle use, but all of that ripping around in the wilderness has consequences.

“Off-highway vehicle use can have a dramatic impact on downstream water quality and on the ability of endangered species to survive,” he said.

An example of the type of damage that can be caused by off-highway vehicles. Photo: Stephen Legault.

Legault — who’s lived in Alberta for 25 years — is adamant he isn’t against quadders and other off-highway vehicle users, noting that citizens have done a good job of managing stream crossings in some areas.

“I think the critical thing is that it’s not about eliminating it, it’s about finding a place for it where it does less damage.”

The first threats of physical violence came when Legault gave a talk in Caroline, Alberta, a few months ago.

“For the first time in 25 years, I actually had to leave an event and drive away in order to de-escalate the situation,” Legault said. “In many ways, what’s happening is there’s a proxy fight happening right now over government.”

It’s certainly not the first time a complex policy conversation has turned into a toxic, polarized debate. It’s just one of several attacks on academics, scientists and environmentalists in Alberta in recent years. Veteran environmentalist Tzeporah Berman has faced violent threats for her role in Alberta’s Oil Sands Advisory Group. And economists Andrew Leach and Trevor Tombe have weathered more than their fair share of rage online.“

Collaborating with the enemy

Adam Kahane knows a thing or two about how public conversations can get derailed. He has mediated conflicts around the world for more than three decades and has been credited with helping to end Colombia’s civil war.

In his latest book, Collaborating with the Enemy: How to Work with People you Don’t Agree With or Like or Trust, Kahane says there are four choices when it comes to working with others: collaborate, adapt, force or exit.

There’s always the choice to collaborate. Unfortunately, often times when people can’t get what they want, they turn the other side into an “enemy.”

“The situation quickly moves from ‘those people have a different perspective’ to ‘those people are wrong’ to ‘those people are my enemy.’ That’s the process of enemy-fying, constructing enemies,” Kahane said.

“I’m not saying people never have enemies, but I’m saying we don’t have enemies as often as we think we do. And so turning an ordinary situation into a declaration of war is an unfortunate escalation.”

Another factor that has really irked some Albertans in the debate over limiting off-highway vehicle use in the Bighorn Backcountry is the involvement of Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative and the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society. Both of these organizations (like most non-profit organizations, including ourselves), receive some of their funding from foundations located outside of Canada that share a common interest in protecting wildlife and wilderness and addressing climate change. (We might need a passport at the border, but wide-ranging animals such as grizzly bear, wolverine and lynx roam freely back and forth between the two countries and require protection on both sides of the border for their long-term viability).

As for the involvement of “foreign-funded” groups, Kahane says it’s not the first time there have been charges of “foreign-funded” organizations coming in from the outside and meddling in local affairs.

“It’s a classic form of othering,” Kahne said. “It’s a very common way of looking at things, because then the problem isn’t us. It’s those outsiders. It’s a scapegoat.”

French thinker Rene Girard says a scapegoat removes the need to look at ourselves.

“Usually there’s something amongst us that has to be worked out,” Kahane said.

Crescent Falls in the Bighorn Backcountry. Photo: Stephen Legault.

The real issues

In the case of the escalating tension over the North Saskatchewan River, Legault says there’s been almost no monitoring or enforcement of off-highway vehicle use in Alberta over the last decade.

“An identity has developed that part of being an Albertan means I can go anywhere I want,” he said.

“We’re not asking the government to ban off-highway vehicle use. What we’re saying is there needs to be careful thought given to where off-highway vehicle use occurs … What we’re really trying to do is find a place for everybody to enjoy nature.”

Coletto said this issue feeds into a larger narrative in which the battle lines are easily drawn.

“There’s always a defence of tradition and heritage,” he said. “On the one hand, you’ve got a solid and larger than perceived group of environmentalists and progressives who are living and working and trying to advocate for change in Alberta, but there’s just as large a group that’s trying to defend their way of life.”

Since the early 1970s, there’s been a conversation about protecting the Bighorn Backcountry. In 1974, former premier Peter Lougheed held the eastern slopes hearings, in an attempt to engage ranchers, hunters and sportsmen on a vision for how the region would be managed.

“That proposal has gone so far as to be on roadmaps in Alberta in the 1980s and then got quickly rescinded,” Legault said. “This issue has been part of the effort to protect Alberta’s headwaters for a very long time.”

Getting beyond the battle of Alberta

Kahane is clear that if you want to reach a solution, sometimes you need to work with people with whom you have permanent disagreements.

“I think those situations are more and more common and it is possible. I’ve seen it with my own eyes many times, but you have to make a choice,” Kahane says.

Sometimes that means talking in the presence of armed guards and sometimes that means talking under the condition that people leave their guns at the door.

In Colombia, progress was made in peace talks by bringing together everyone from armed left-wing guerillas and right-wing paramilitary to trade unions, churchgoers and academics.

Alberta may be no Colombia, but it’s important to remember there are real differences at play, Kahane emphasized.

“They’re not imaginary. And they’re not necessarily ones that if we really had a good chat over a beer we’d find we agreed,” he said.

A fascinating piece of Coletto’s research indicates Albertans think they’re more conservative than they actually are.

“I think it’s historical. You have to always keep in mind the historical political culture of Alberta as being a place that was for most of its history on the outside looking in,” Coletto said. “It is remarkable to think how resilient those views have been and how effectively they’ve been passed down even from generation to generation. If you’re a progressive or an environmental-minded Albertan … that’s always going to be a hurdle in the province.”

But, while being conservative has been a core part of the Alberta identity for a long time, “that identity is starting to be chipped away at,” Coletto says.

Legault said he’s recently been able to start some productive conversations through posting his photographs of the Bighorn Backcountry.

“I think all sides of the conversation need to get over their fear of losing,” he reflected.  “Conservationists need to get over their fear of losing nature and recreationalists need to get over their fear that we’re going to take away everything they care about.”

The irony is people on both sides of the conversation are defending their right to spend time outside in nature.

“There are lots of shared values,” Legault said. “The problem is the divisions are easily exploitable.”

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

Gravel-bed rivers and their floodplains are the lifeblood of ecosystems and need to be allowed to run and flood unimpeded if species are to be protected and communities are to cope with climate change, a ground-breaking scientific study has found.

The broad valleys formed by rivers flowing from glaciated mountains, such as those found throughout B.C. and Alberta, are some of the most ecologically important habitats in North America, according to the team of scientists who have done the first extensive study of the full range of species that rely on gravel-bed rivers, ranging from microbes to bears. The paper was published online Friday in Science Advances.

In the region that stretches from Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming to the northern Yukon, gravel-bed river flood plains support more than half the plant life. About 70 per cent of the area’s bird species use the floodplain, while deer, elk, caribou, wolves and grizzly bears use the plains for food, habitat and as important migration corridors.

While everyone knows that fish rely on rivers, the scientists found that species such as cottonwood trees need the river flood to reproduce and the ever-changing landscape of changing channels and shifting gravel and rocks supports a complex food web.

Gravel-bed rivers are much more than water flowing through the channel, said lead author Ric Hauer, director of the University of Montana’s Center for Integrated research on the Environment.

“The river flows over and through the entire floodplain system, from valley wall to valley wall, and supports an extraordinary diversity of life. The river is so much bigger than it appears to be at first glance,” he said.

But the floodplains are endangered worldwide as the flat, productive valleys are attractive for agriculture, roads or houses and it is time to look at gravel bed rivers with new eyes, said Harvey Locke, co-founder of the Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative and one of the study’s authors.

“A wild and free river drives the life support system across the whole landscape and we need to keep them happy,” Locke said in an interview with DeSmog Canada.

“We need to let them be rivers and run free and do our development respecting that need instead of trying to control them.”

That means not building dams or levees that prevent essential flooding, Locke said.

“Flooding is critical to the health of the riparian system and, by extension, organisms across the whole landscape and, when you put in a dam for climate change mitigation you are killing that process. It’s a catastrophe not only for the immediate ecological effects, but it also puts a huge barrier to connectivity so species cannot go up the river to adapt to climate change,” Locke said.

Hydro dams are often touted as green energy, but, in reality they are a huge problem, not a solution to climate change, he said.

Locke emphasized that the scientific study does not look at the controversy behind individual projects such as the planned Site C dam in northeastern B.C., but said he personally regards Site C as a prime example of the problem.

Existing dams on the Peace River have already had a devastating effect downstream, he said.

“And the horror of wrecking more of that beautiful river valley around Fort St. John is an example of not thinking clearly. It’s very bad for the resilience of the landscape,” he said.

Gravel-bed rivers are found mainly in the western U.S. and Canada — and include major rivers such as the Columbia, Fraser, Flathead, Mackenzie and Yukon — and every part of B.C is affected by them, said Locke, who is hoping the scientific paper will attract the attention of groups such as planners and politicians who make development decisions.

“The really big point is that gravel-bed river systems are the heart of the whole landscape and you don’t want to clog the arteries attached to the heart, which is what a dam does,” he said.

Even in protected areas such as Yellowstone and Banff national parks, humans have altered the floodplains, the scientists found.

Hauer said the increasing pressures of climate change mean that species need access to intact gravel-bed ecosystems in order to survive.

“These systems must be protected and those that are already degraded must be restored,” he said.

Biologist and grizzly bear expert Michael Proctor, of Birchdale Ecological, one of the report’s authors, said the research highlighted how river systems are a focus of regional connectivity, not only for grizzly bears, but for all species.

“This paper helped me realize the amazing significance of gravel bed river systems, not just river valleys, as an ecological focus and arena of so much biodiversity and ecological processes,” Proctor said.

“It’s like the narrow pinch point in an hour-glass of influence. Everything is influenced by that pinch point.”

Human settlement and activities in those river valleys and floodplains reduces their biodiversity and significance, Proctor said.

“We need to leave and even restore some portions of these river systems to more of a natural condition,” he said.

Photo: Flathead River by Harvey Locke

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

By Tim Burkhart, former researcher with the Cohen Commission and Peace River Break Coordinator with the Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative.   On a clear day after the thaw, I climb a meandering hiking trail through thick forest, crossing springs swollen with alpine melt, and scramble up rocky slopes to a wind-swept vista of alpine tundra at the weather-beaten peak of Mount Bickford, about 40 minutes west of the small industry town of Chetwynd, B.C.   From this lofty vantage point above the Pine Pass, the crucial east-west length of Highway 97 is visible, connecting northeast B.C. with the rest of the province west of the Rockies.   Standing beside the dark waters of a mountain lake, still fringed with snow, I can gaze out upon an uninterrupted view of one of the most important landscapes in British Columbia.

This is the Peace River Break, the lifeblood of a diverse ecosystem and a critical part of a continental landscape. The east-west traveling Peace River is the only major river to “break” through the Rockies, funnelling warm Pacific air across the mountains. 

This unique geography creates a continental climate that supports diverse ecosystems, acts as a sanctuary to a number of threatened and endangered species, and provides rich soils that could feed up to a million people.   The Peace River Break landscape is an integral and critical part of a continental puzzle, whose pieces make up the Yellowstone to Yukon corridor, one of the last intact mountain ecosystems on Earth. 

Side by side maps show the location of the the Site C dam within the Yellowstone to Yukon conservation corridor. Images: Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative.   Stretching more than 3,200 kilometres, the Yellowstone to Yukon region is home to the full suite of wildlife species that existed when European explorers first arrived. Known as the “mother of rivers,” these mountain ecosystems are the source of clean, safe drinking water for up to 15 million North Americans.   This region is an ecologically vital, but threatened, priority area for conservation in this large transboundary landscape. Encompassing parts of many distinct ecosystems, the Peace River Break is a continental crossroads that straddles the Peace River watershed and provides a corridor for migrating birds, caribou and grizzly bears.   But this key wildlife corridor is under great pressure. According to Global Forest Watch Canada, the Peace River Break is experiencing industrial-caused disturbances at rates greater than those found in Alberta’s oilsands region. Intense and accelerating oil, gas and coalbed methane extraction, coal and other mining, forestry and wind energy development act as barriers to wildlife movement and threaten the integrity of the landscape.   Adding to these pressures, the province has begun construction of the Site C hydro dam, which would further erode the landscape’s ability to support wide-ranging species.

For 12 years running, community members have gathered to paddle the Peace River in opposition to Site C dam, an annual event jointly hosted by the West Moberly First Nations and Peace Valley Environment Association. Photo: Tristan Brand.   Conservation of ecosystems and industrial resource development are woefully unbalanced in the Peace River Break, where just a few protected areas represent a tiny fraction of the region's ecological diversity and only 4 per cent of its land base.   Although approximately 50 per cent of the region has extensive road networks and a widespread industrial footprint, a band of relatively intact land extends north-south along the Hart and Misinchinka Ranges of the Rocky Mountains.   To the east the wetlands and aspen parklands of the boreal plains rise out of the valleys of the Peace and Pine rivers, a northern extension of the Great Plains of North America. To the north, forested hills and green valleys roll away to the deep waters of the man-made Williston Reservoir.

The W.A.C. Bennet dam, constructed in 1968, flooded 350,000 acres of forested land, including sections along the Peace, Finlay and Parsnip rivers. Photo: Tristan Brand.   This highland carpet of green spruce and pine is pierced by the brilliant white pinnacles of Klinse-za — the Twin Sisters mountains — a place of healing and sanctuary to the First Nations that have made their home in the Peace since time immemorial.   This mountain ecosystem includes several undeveloped creek watersheds, intact forests, alpine terrain with no roads, and critical core and seasonal wildlife habitat. It’s a narrow corridor of wilderness that enables wildlife to move between two large, but isolated, regions of protected habitat: the Muskwa-Kechika Ecosystem to the north and, to the south, the major parks of the central Rockies — Jasper, Banff and Kakwa.   Keeping this connection intact is critical for wide-ranging wildlife such as grizzly bears, mountain caribou and wolverines.

Cumulative industrial impacts in the Peace. Image: Global Forest Watch.

  Without this link, populations would become isolated over time, may not reach their breeding and wintering grounds, and would not be able to make the long and necessary journeys in search of new homes and mates.   From my perch atop Mount Bickford, I can see this band of intact wildland stretching south from the Pine Pass, and the threats this region’s wildlife face are starkly laid bare.   I can spy coal mines, wind farms, forestry cutblocks and roads, pipelines, transmission lines, and a natural gas plant facility that holds the dubious honour of being the largest single CO2 emitter in B.C.   Given the rapid pace of resource development all around the Peace region, protecting its continentally-significant ecological values has never been so urgent. It’s time to preserve its breathtaking wild landscapes and spectacular wildlife for future generations to enjoy.

Image: Located near Hudson Hope, B.C., these islands are important calving grounds for moose and other ungulates. Photo: Tristan Brand.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

Thirty-one years ago, when the Site C dam in B.C.’s Peace Valley was rejected for the first time, BC Hydro was told to investigate alternatives sources of energy, specifically geothermal energy, by the B.C. Utilities Commission.

But the Crown corporation has utterly failed to do so, according to the report of the joint review panel on the Site C project, released last month.

Ken Boon, a Peace Valley farmer whose land would be flooded by the dam, pointed this out to the panel, noting that somehow “we’re back here now 30 years later and still talking about the dam.”

[view:in_this_series=block_1]

The panel doesn’t mince words on the province’s failure to investigate alternatives.

“The low level of effort is surprising, especially if it results in a plan that involves large and possibly avoidable environmental and social costs,” it writes.

The $7.9-billion dam would flood 107 kilometres of the Peace River and its tributaries, threatening endangered wildlife and putting farmland under water.

Why haven’t alternatives been researched? The panel points the finger at the government’s lack of funding for geological exploration, while outlining a culture of complacency fuelled by plentiful, low-cost electricity.

But times have changed, the panel says, and failure to ramp up exploration of alternative renewable sources a decade ago is hurting the province now: “The panel concludes that a failure to pursue research over the last 30 years into B.C.’s geothermal resources has left BC Hydro without information about a resource that BC Hydro thinks may offer up to 700 megawatts of firm, economic power with low environmental costs.”

With the largest public expenditure of the next 20 years on the table and a lack of clear demand for the Site C project, a serious look at the alternatives is in order.

Someday, a growing B.C. population will need more energy. “The question is when,” the panel writes. “A second question is what alternatives may be available when that day comes.”

Geothermal offers alternative reliable source of power

Even with next to no research, BC Hydro has estimated geothermal energy could replace two-thirds of Site C’s power.

Canada is currently the only major country located along the Pacific Rim’s Ring of Fire not producing geothermal energy. A Geological Survey of Canada report recently noted that northeast B.C. has the “highest potential for immediate development of geothermal energy” anywhere in the country.

The advantage of geothermal power over other types of renewable energy is that it’s considered a “firm” source of base load power, comparable to a hydro dam. The United States has about 3,400 MW of installed geothermal capacity.

“The wind doesn’t always blow and the sun doesn’t always shine, but the earth is providing heat at a constant rate,” explains Grant Van Hal, a senior policy advisor for the Canadian Geothermal Energy Association (CanGEA).

During the Site C hearings, the association argued geothermal energy offers more jobs spread through B.C. and First Nations, less transmission upgrade costs, fewer environmental impacts and the planning flexibility to follow the actual demand growth in the provincial system.

Despite this potential, the panel noted that BC Hydro reported its current investment in geothermal research as under $100,000 a year.

“We don’t really have funding to do R&D… In fact we’re expected not to do that,” BC Hydro said at the hearings.

However, the Clean Energy Act states it is a provincial objective “to use and foster the development in British Columbia of innovative technologies that support energy conservation and efficiency and the use of clean or renewable resources.”

The panel doesn’t overlook this contradiction and raises several issues with it — chiefly that “if BC Hydro is to continually scan the resource and technology horizon for future supply and conservation possibilities, it must have a budget and a mandate to do so. Without these, long-term planning is seriously uninformed.”

In an effort to prevent future decision-makers from also being “seriously uninformed,” the panel re-iterates what was said in 1983:

The Panel recommends, regardless of the decision taken on Site C, that BC Hydro establish a research and development budget for the resource and engineering characterization of geographically diverse renewable resources.

Next, in one of the panel’s more pointed remarks, the report reads: “If the senior governments were doing their job, there would be no need for this recommendation.”

Building new supply bit by bit reduces costs

Despite the lack of detailed information for B.C., based on costs in other jurisdiction, the panel is able to say that geothermal power is available at a similar cost to Site C — and is more flexible.

“These sources, being individually smaller than Site C, would allow supply to better follow demand, obviating most of the early-year losses of Site C,” the report says.

That’s a point re-iterated by Paul Kariya, the executive director of trade association Clean Energy BC.

“Times have changed. We’ve been through an era of building big dams,” he told DeSmog Canada. “When you build a dam, you get this one massive lump of power and that’s not the way that energy is planned for anymore.”

This part of the Peace Valley would be flooded if the Site C dam is built. Credit: Graham Osborne.

While much has changed, some things haven’t.

“One of the things that hasn’t changed is governments of all stripes like mega projects,” Kariya says. “Site C is potentially the last mega hydro dam project in B.C. They’ll want it there as a potential.”

Matt Horne of the Pembina Institute, a sustainable energy think tank, says predicting future power demand is an uncertain game.

“One of the uncomfortable parts of Site C, is that you’re saying, ‘This is where demand is going to be at in 15 years,’ whereas other options … are much more scalable and can be matched to demand over time,” he says.

“That way, if we end up in a scenario where demand doesn’t increase as fast as BC Hydro is predicting, we don’t have to overbuild, whereas with Site C it’s one big block.”

A study commissioned by the Treaty 8 First Nations, “Need for, Purpose of and Alternatives to the Site C Hydroelectric Project,” found Site C is not a cost-effective solution to meeting BC Hydro’s forecast needs for additional energy and capacity. Study author Philip Raphals of the Helios Centre found that when compared to alternative portfolios built as needed to meet demand, the dam comes out as the most expensive of alternatives.

But what about natural gas plans?

Some of the bigger uncertainties in terms of electricity demand are around the scale of resource development, particularly the liquefied natural gas (LNG) industry. That’s because each large LNG terminal, if run entirely by electricity, would require an entire Site C dam to power it.

However, the panel found large LNG plants are likely to be powered by natural gas directly (because they’ve been given an exemption from the Clean Energy Act) and, even if they did use electricity, the power would be required before Site C became operational.

The panel seemed unimpressed by B.C.’s double-standard on the topic of burning natural gas for electricity (much more on that coming later in this series).

“LNG developers have been promised a free hand to burn their gas here for their own purposes, but BC Hydro has been denied the same privilege,” the panel wrote.

Cost of renewables dropping rapidly, cost of dams increasing

Merran Smith, executive director of Clean Energy Canada, says the cost of renewables has gone down rapidly in the past five years, with solar costs dropping 80 per cent and wind costs dropping 35 per cent.

“And we only see those lines continuing down, so a decade from now, the cost one will assume will be lower,” Smith told DeSmog Canada. “Whereas the cost for building large dams is only going up.”

After conserving as much as possible, it makes most sense to build new electricity supply where it’s needed, Smith says.

“There’s renewable potential all over this province, so rather than having one large dam in the north with a huge transmission line, we can create renewable energy in the regions where it’s needed,” she says.

Given this, Smith questions whether Site C is the best path forward for British Columbians.

“Why would we lock ourselves into a very expensive large dam when we could build units in clean, efficient renewable energy as we need it and where we need it?”

Photo: “Geothermal borehole house” by Lydur Skulason via Flickr

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

Fourteen hours. That’s roughly how long it takes to drive the 1,220 kilometres between Vancouver and Fort St. John, B.C. If you drove the same distance straight east, you’d be approaching the Saskatchewan border.

So it's not exactly surprising that the Peace River Country, which spans the Alberta-B.C. border and includes the cities of Fort St. John, Dawson Creek and Grande Prairie, feels a world away to the 3.4 million people — 73 per cent of B.C.’s population — who live in the Lower Mainland or on Vancouver Island.

A September 2013 poll commissioned by BC Hydro found only four in 10 British Columbians had even heard of the Crown utility’s $7.9 billion proposal to build a third hydroelectric dam on the Peace River.

But the decision about whether or not to build the Site C dam stands to directly affect all British Columbians — from the implications for our electricity bills to the flooding of some of our province's most valuable agricultural land.

With that in mind, today DeSmog Canada is launching an in-depth series looking at the issues at play in the pending decision on the Site C dam — from electricity demand and economics to First Nations concerns and alternative sources of energy.

“This project doesn’t just affect us on the ground, it’s going to affect the pocketbook of every British Columbian,” said Liz Logan, Treaty 8 First Nations Tribal Chief.

That’s because the dam, the largest infrastructure project in Canada, would be built with public money — about $1,700 of public money for every man, woman and child in British Columbia, to be specific.

Largest public expenditure in B.C. history?

"Site C is not an ordinary project,” said the report of the joint review panel, released two weeks ago. “At $7.9 billion, it might be the largest provincial public expenditure of the next 20 years.” [view:in_this_series=block_1]

While concluding that the Site C dam is the best alternative for providing B.C. with reliable cheap power, the panel said BC Hydro has not proven the power is needed in the immediate future — and the dam would cause significant adverse effects on the environment and wildlife, First Nations and farmers.

“Justification must rest on an unambiguous need for the power,” the report stated.

The panel stopped short of recommending for or against the project — a decision that now rests in the hands of the federal and provincial governments, which have until Nov. 8 to make up their minds on the project.

For residents of the Peace Valley, the report release was a bit like déjà vu. This is the third time Site C has been on the table.

The dam was first turned down in the ’80s by the independent B.C. Utilities Commission, which said BC Hydro hadn't demonstrated that the power was needed or that the dam was preferable to all other sources of power. In the ’90s, BC Hydro suspended the project again because the need for power was still considered insufficient.

This time around the provincial government has exempted the project from the oversight of the B.C. Utilities Commission.

What are the alternatives?

We're living in an era where major hydrodams are being decommissioned all over the world, including just across the border in Washington State where the Elwha Dam was recently removed.

So it's fitting that the joint review panel’s report noted that BC Hydro has not looked closely enough at alternatives, such as geothermal energy.

“The panel concludes that a failure to pursue research over the last 30 years into B.C.’s geothermal resources has left B.C Hydro without information about a resource that BC Hydro thinks may offer up to 700 megawatts of firm, economic power with low environmental costs,” it says.

If approved, the dam would flood 107 kilometres of river, impacting 13,000 hectares of agricultural land — including flooding 3,800 hectares of farmland in the Agricultural Land Reserve, an area nearly twice the size of the city of Victoria.

“There’s enough land to produce fresh fruits and vegetables for a million people,” says Wendy Holm, a professional agrologist.

The project would also add more strain to the Peace, a region that already has two mega hydro dams, 16,267 oil and gas well sites and 8,517 petroleum and natural gas facilities.

Peace Break important gateway for wildlife, early explorers

The area is more than just a haven for industrial activity though. Because the Peace River is the only river to break the barrier of the Rocky Mountains between the Yukon south almost to Mexico, it has provided a gateway for wildlife and people for thousands of years.

At Charlie Lake Cave in the Peace Country, there’s evidence of human occupations spanning 11,000 years, making it one of just a handful of archaeological sites in North American that date back more than 10,500 years.

Thousands of years later, First Nations signed a treaty with the government of Canada, known as Treaty 8, which promises they can continue their way of life, including rights to hunting, fishing and trapping. As such, the Treaty 8 First Nations have raised serious concerns about the Site C dam.

When Sir Alexander Mackenzie became the first European known to reach the Peace River area in 1792, he wrote in his journal that the valley was so rich in wildlife that in some places it looked almost like a barnyard.

Fast-forward another 200 years and the Peace Break has been recognized as an international conservation priority for the movement of endangered populations of woodland caribou and grizzlies. 

All of these factors raise serious questions about whether Site C is the best option to meet the electricity needs of British Columbia.

With so much hanging in the balance, DeSmog Canada will be taking a closer look at the issues surrounding the Site C dam proposal in the coming weeks.

We hope you’ll follow along, chime in below in the comments section and share with your friends and family — because while this project may be out of sight for many British Columbians, it’s far too consequential to be put out of mind.

Photo: A section of the Peace River Valley that would be flooded if the Site C dam were built, by Graham Osborne.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.