Site C is a proposed $7.9 billion, 60-metre high, 1,050-metre-long earth-filled dam and hydroelectric generation station that would be located on the Peace River between the communities of Hudson’s Hope and Taylor in north-eastern British Columbia. It would create an 83-kilometre-long reservoir.
The Vancouver Sun reports, “BC Hydro has submitted its Site C environmental impact statement for the proposed (dam). The massive five volume, 40-section submission to (the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency and the B.C. Environmental Assessment Office) is the result of five years of studying the potential effects of the dam and proposed measures to avoid or mitigate the impacts. David Conway, with Hydro’s Site C community relations, says public environmental review hearings about a year away and if the project goes ahead it will start generating electricity in 2021.”
The Globe and Mail adds, “BC Hydro says (the dam) will flood agricultural land and force some landowners off their property, but overall the project should proceed because it’s in the best interests of the province. …The joint environmental review process includes public hearings and will be followed by a decision on the future of the project, likely sometime next year.”
And another Vancouver Sun article notes, “Hydro says it needs to go ahead with the project because electricity demand is forecast to go up 40 per cent in B.C. over the next 20 years. That forecast does not take into account potential demand from the province’s emerging liquefied natural gas industry. If any plants go ahead, B.C. could need new sources of electricity generation. …Critics say (the reservoir would flood) valuable farmland. It is also opposed by regional First Nations, who have joined forces with environmental groups to fight the project. Roland Wilson, chief of the West Moberly First Nation, has said previously that the band is drawing a line in the sand over Site C.”
The dam is opposed by 23 First Nations from across B.C., Alberta, and the Northwest Territories (noted in this May 2011 campaign blog, http://canadians.org/campaignblog/?p=7986), and two years ago the Doig River, Halfway River, Prophet River, West Moberly and Salteau First Nations asked the United Nations to defend their rights under the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples against this project (http://canadians.org/blog/?p=9221).
To read Council of Canadians chairperson Maude Barlow’s 9-point critique of large dams, go to http://canadians.org/blog/?p=6779. This March, the Blue Planet Project intends to release a report on the impact of dams on the UN-recognized right to water. And within a ‘rights of nature’ context, it may also be argued that dams violate the rights of water, http://canadians.org/blog/?p=9438.
More to come.
