Earlier this year, on the stunning Peace River, BC Hydro began clear cutting forests to prepare for the early stages of constructing their newest Clean Energy Project, the Site C Dam. The Site C Mega-Dam is a $9 billion hydroelectric dam that could not be farther from a Clean Energy Project. This dam will flood close to 100 kilometres of British Columbia’s most productive farmland and critical wildlife territory, while destroying important wetlands and fish habitat. The 13,000 acres of farmland that will be flooded are able to produce enough food for all of Northern British Columbia.

But it gets a lot worse. In fact, I like to look at the Site C Dam like one of those older, uglier Dracula-style vampires. The more the sun shines on it, the uglier it gets (unlike the stunning Twilight and True Blood-era vampires). This project is a complete waste of money financed by the good law-abiding taxpayers of BC. The costs of construction are severely underestimated and will likely exceed $10 billion, not to mention the massive external expenses due to the destruction of productive farmland and eradication of economically important fish and wildlife. These costs could actually bankrupt BC Hydro entirely, which might not be a bad thing depending on how much you hate the crown corporation. Hilariously, this dam is going to take so long to build that during its construction, there will be major advances in hydroelectric technology that would have way less of an environmental impact.

For a dam that BC Hydro is calling a “Clean Energy Project”, Site C has quite the dirty side. The 10-year construction phase will see 3,500,000,000 cubic metres of concrete poured and 500,000 cubic metres of wood burned. This is more than enough concrete to build a sidewalk around the entire planet, twice.

The only reason it’s being built is not to produce enough electricity to meet the demand for the electricity hungry lifestyle we have grown accustomed to here in Vancouver, but to provide the energy required for the “booming” natural gas industry. Both hydraulic fracturing (fracking) and the process of liquefying natural gas require massive amounts of electricity.

Let me paint this morbid picture of what we radical environmentalists are calling BC’s “Carbon Corridor.” A massive dam is built in the beautiful Peace River region that will produce enough electricity to power 450,000 homes. But instead of using that energy to power homes, trains or cars, it is transmitted across the province to provide the power to extract natural gas, which is then piped to the coast where it is liquefied and put on tankers. These tankers cross the Pacific Ocean and where upon arrival is turned into gas and burned for consumption.

Despite this, there is a surprising lacklustre effort from the big green environmental NGO’s in BC to campaign to stop the project. Aside from the Wilderness Committee and recent efforts from our pal David Suzuki (who seems to get more radical every year), nobody is really talking about the project. Construction is already underway with massive amounts of clearing and the early stages of river diversion. This is happening despite the fact that the dam is the subject of six different lawsuits against the provincial and federal governments that have not been resolved.

The community of the Peace River region remains divided on the dam, as many farmers, ranchers and Indigenous people remain adamantly opposed. However, with the recent tanking of the oil and gas sector, the construction of the dam is one of the only remaining prospects for work – but with the oil and gas sector struggling, what then is the point of it? The age of fossil fuel is finally drawing to a close. Just think of what we could accomplish with $10 billion of investment in transit, renewable energy and electric transportation infrastructure.

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Photo: David Suzuki and Grand Chief Stewart Phillip supporting Site C protestors outside Supreme Courts (Joe Foy)