March 15th, 2009 - Read Joe Foy's Wild Times column in the Watershed Sentinel as he shows why we have to dump the BC Energy Plan.

I looked at the posters on the wall in disbelief. “There has to be more than this,” I muttered to myself. But the few glossy posters taped to the walls and a couple of company handouts was all there was. There certainly was a lack of information at this so-called public information meeting.

I was in the Sunshine Coast town of Powell River attending the first Environmental Assessment meeting of the proposed Bute Inlet private hydropower project. If approved by the federal and provincial governments it would be the largest private hydropower project in Canada, yet only three public meetings had been scheduled in the towns of Powell River, Sechelt and Campbell River.

The Bute Inlet $3.5-to-$4 billion project includes 17 diversion dams and many kilometres of pipes to hold the river water as well as 314 kilometres of roads, 443 kilometres of transmission lines, airstrips and construction staging areas. All of it would be located in the heart of BC’s south coast salmon, mountain goat and grizzly bear ecosystem.

But when question and answer time came at the Powell River meeting it became apparent that the Plutonic Power representative was not prepared to answer many of the pointed questions about the environmental impact of such a massive industrial project. And when members of the public demanded answers, and further public meetings throughout the province, their concerns were quickly brushed off.

Which got me thinking, how the heck did this get so messed up in the first place?

There are now over 700 rivers and streams staked by private developers. How did we get to the point of handing over our salmon and grizzly bear rivers to the likes of General Electric and Plutonic?

The short answer is that we are suffering the consequences of the BC government’s 2002 energy plan. The energy plan forbids BC Hydro from building any of these new energy projects – and orders Hydro to buy power from the private companies at very high rates in blocks of time from two to four decades long – regardless of need.

This has sparked a gold rush of private developers staking our rivers – with the latest and biggest being the Bute Inlet mega-project.

The BC government says that the BC energy plan is all about fighting climate change – but that proposition simply doesn’t hold water. Why at this time of climate crisis would we suddenly abandon our publicly owned power system in favour of a corporately owned one?

After all, BC’s publicly owned power production system already has one of the lowest carbon footprints on the planet, being based mostly on hydropower. BC’s transportation, housing and industrial sectors have the biggest carbon impacts, not our electricity production.

The BC government says that we are running out of power, but according to BC Stats the province has been a net electricity exporter for seven out of the last eleven years. And, as we move to further electrify our housing, transportation, and industrial sectors to reduce carbon emissions,
there are much better places to look than private river power.

We could start by bringing back our downstream Columbia River benefits in hydropower electricity instead of money. We can retrofit our existing BC Hydro dams to produce more power and we could ban the export of hydropower by some of BC’s large industrial producers.

Can you imagine a province where the Port Mann freeway and bridge expansion is cancelled in favour of an electrified public transportation system? Where the proposed Gateway oil pipeline to transport tar sands oil to the Pacific is dropped in favour of a power line to bring back Columbia River hydro power to BC homes and businesses? A province where the wild rivers of the Bute Inlet and
all around BC remain wild and full of life. I sure can.

We just have to get rid of that damn energy plan.