I recently attended the Site C Summit in Victoria and learned much more about the Site C Dam project on the Peace River than I had previously been aware of. It is undoubtedly a giant boondoggle that makes no economic, fiscal or political sense.
Large hydro dams are not "clean and green." The existing two dams on the Peace River have already made fish in the river too toxic with methylmercury for human consumption.
BC taxpayers and BC Hydro ratepayers will be carrying an enormous cost for a useless and environmentally disastrous white elephant for decades. Site C Dam is leading us down the path the Newfoundland and Manitoba governments are now regretting with the Muskrat Falls and Keeyask Dam projects in Labrador and Manitoba.
It has already cost us $2.4 billion. It will cost somewhere in the neighbourhood of $10 billion more, particularly given cost overruns that are inevitable.
We do not need the power. BC is already awash in electricity and will soon have access to better and more cost-efficient renewable power sources.
Good union jobs will not materialize now that Aecon, the major construction company on Site C, has been bought out by a Chinese corporation already shown to be fraudulent and extremely harmful in its behaviour.
This company has been condemned by the World Bank for its illegal activities elsewhere. What jobs there are will likely go to short-term foreign workers.
Geophysical surveys strongly indicate the banks of the Peace River are unstable and would not support a large dam construction. This instability is exacerbated by fracking activity we now know leads directly to earthquakes and seismic activity.
Have you heard the expression "throwing good money after bad?" That's what this is. The cost of shutting down the project and reclaiming the damage already done will be much more cost-effective than continuing with this.
Indeed, I don't believe premier John Horgan when he says he had no choice. We the people don't need this electricity.
Renewable energy is the way of the future and is already providing power cheaper than traditional sources of energy such as hydro (as reported in Colorado and Alberta earlier this year).
My main area of work for many years now has been indigenous rights. Site C Dam will destroy much of what is left of Treaty 8 territory in the Peace River; will make it impossible for West Moberly First Nations and Prophet River First Nation to exercise their aboriginal and treaty rights (now subject to litigation); will destroy or endanger 10,000-year-old archaeological heritage sites; and will be a conservation disaster for endangered species such as the woodland caribou.
The impact of the dam will also be felt downstream in Dene Nation territory into the Athabasca Delta, already profoundly damaged as a result of tar-sands activities, the Slave River and even further downstream to the Mackenzie River flowing into the Arctic Ocean.
The decision to continue with the dam flies in the face of promises to respect the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. First nations came out in record numbers to vote for the NDP this last election. They will not forget.
We all know the only real need for this power is the oil and gas-fracking industry in Northeast BC (also in Treaty 8 territory and also subject to litigation).
Given the premier's surprising support for LNG in China this past month, I am extremely suspicious, as are many others, of the real motivation for the decision to build this dam.
BC Green Party leader Andrew Weaver has made it clear his party will not support any LNG projects and will bring down the government to prevent it if necessary.
Any reason, even a very bad reason, for building this dam is gone.
Shelley Wright works in indigenous rights and is a part-time resident of Lund.
