A joint review panel of provincial and federal environment ministries studying environmental impacts of the proposed $8 billion Site C dam has found no reason the dam can’t go ahead.

 

The panel lists 50 recommendations, however, mostly for environmental impact mitigation, should the provincial government decide to go ahead with the project.

 

One of those recommendations is that the project should go to the BC Utilities Commission for review of the project’s costs and impacts on ratepayers.

 

That is significant because the provincial government specifically exempted the project from the BC Utilities Commission’s purview.

 

And while the panel agrees that the dam is the least expensive way to meet B.C.’s future energy needs, it takes issue with BC Hydro’s schedule for building it, saying “the proponent has not fully demonstrated the need for the Project on the timetable set forth.”

 

 “The benefits are clear,” the panel said in a summary. “Despite high initial costs, and some uncertainty about when the power would be needed, the project would provide a large and long -term increment of firm energy and capacity at a price that would benefit future generations.”

 

However, the panel acknowledges the dam poses problems, including the flooding of 5,000 hectares of valuable farmland and negative impacts on fishing by First Nations in the area.

 

“I’m still cautiously optimistic here,” said Ken Boon, who would lose half his farm to flooding to make way for the dam. “I see some real problems here.”

 

The dam would produce 4,600 gigawatt hours (GWh) of electricity per year, enough to power roughly 410,000 homes.

 

It would be the third large dam on the Peace River, and would require more than 5,000 hectares of prime agricultural land in the Peace River Valley to be flooded.

 

The fact the dam could go ahead, if all conditions are met, does not necessarily mean it will. It’s ultimately up the provincial government to make the final decision, although it was the provincial government that resurrected the plan, after a previous failed attempt, and removed a major impediment to it – the BC Utilities Commission.

 

According to BC Hydro’s most recent Integrated Resource Plan, electricity demand is expected to increase by 40% over the next two decades. It says Site C would be among the most cost-effective options for meeting future energy needs.

 

A number of critics disagree. Richard Stout, executive director for the Association of Major Power Consumers of BC (AMPC), which represents 250 large and medium-sized businesses, said the load forecasts BC Hydro is using does not justify such a massive investment.

 

“If you’re concerned about minimizing rate impacts, then what you don’t do is you don’t build a plant before it’s needed,” Stout said.

 

“You don’t build a very capital-intensive plant that takes many, many years to build in the face of uncertain load forecasts. And you certainly should not be building something that is not the least-cost option. Because of the lack of regulatory oversight, we’ve had no satisfaction that Site C meets any of those hurdles.”

 

The Business Council of BC disagrees with the AMPC. It supports Site C as necessary for meeting B.C.’s future needs for industry, including new mines and a nascent liquefied natural gas sector, which would only be allowed to burn natural gas for a portion of its energy needs.

 

The panel agrees there are other alternative clean power sources, such as geothermal, that are “available at similar or somewhat higher costs.” The Canadian Wind Energy Association (CanWEA) insists wind energy would just as cost effective and could be brought online in phases, as it is needed.

 

However, the panel concludes that “the policy constraints that the B.C. government has imposed on BC Hydro have made some other alternatives unavailable.”

 

As for environmental and social costs, they will be high, the panel cautions.

 

The 83-kilometre long reservoir that would have to be created on the Peace River “would cause significant adverse effects on fish and fish habitat, and a number of birds and bats, smaller vertebrate and invertebrate species, rare plants, and sensitive ecosystems,” the panel writes.

 

“It would end agriculture on the Peace Valley bottom lands, and while that would not be significant in the context of B.C. or Western Canadian agricultural production, it would highly impact the farmers who would bear the loss.”

 

It would also “significantly affect the current use of land and resources for traditional purposes by aboriginal peoples, and the effect of that on aboriginal rights and treaty rights generally will have to be weighed by governments.