RTA and Province Sign New Deal
Thursday, July 19, 2012 @ 4:33 PM
EXCLUSIVE
Prince George, B.C. – Opinion 250 has learned the Province and Rio Tinto Alcan have reached an agreement on an amended water license.
Under the amended agreement, RTA cannot use the completed second tunnel at Kemano for anything other than mitigation. In other words, the company cannot use the tunnel to generate additional power. “ no other new works ( including but not limited to, the addition of new penstocks and related generators) are authorized by this Agreement”
The amended water license also ensures RTA will not exceed the existing maximum rate of water diversion (170 cms) from the Nechako River.
The RTA employees who were sent home last week will be called back to the job site this afternoon. RTA had sent the employees home when the Minister in charge of the water license (Pat Bell) held off on signing the amended license.
Minister of Jobs, Tourism and Innovation, Pat Bell, has confirmed the water license amendment has now been signed, and that workers will be heading back to the job before the end of the day.
“This has been a complicated decision “ says Minister Bell “But I realize the Nechako River is very important to people throughout the Nechako valley. I am now confident the second tunnel will only be used for mitigation purposes.”
Critics raised flags about the completion of the second tunnel, saying it was Kemano completion by another name. Bell says the amended water license makes it very clear that the second tunnel cannot be used for any other purpose than to mitigate downtime from the original tunnel.
Comments
Round 1 to rio tinto, next round will be to use this water for power generation. I can see it now. Rio tinto saying its a waste of a natural resource by not using it to make electricity, I give rio tinto 2-4 years before they start pitching the idea.
Well, maybe. Using this water for power generation would require the installation of additional turbines. Of course a permit for that could be obtained one way or the other too.
The mystery of the 3cms may become a subject of a William Shatner Weird or What show episode….
I fail to see round one to RTA. Anyhow restrictions can be changed at anytime that is why I did not buy deeded land in Salmon Arm, government guaranteed 99 year lease, ya right.
It seems obvious to me that this deal was not “subject to some outside peoples opinions”. Carry on.
R.T.A. grandstanding (workers sent home) results in government cave in.
Great attention getting scheme.
On the other hand, why would R.T.A. have even begun their work without the water license issues settled?
metalman.
Why can’t they produce power? This discussion sounds pretty dumb to me. The Government is whining about more power and then they stop RTA from producing it??? An NDP tactic for sure.
PrinceGeorge – It is my understanding the additional turbine is already in place.
Batman, I read somewhere it’s a spare unit and apparently has been there for a long time. When there is a tunnel ceiling collapse (as it happened once already) the whole smelter goes down for as long as it takes to restore the tunnel. Shutting down and restarting an aluminum smelter is a very expensive undertaking. That’s why it runs all year, no shutdowns. RTA’s wish to have a completed parallel standby tunnel is not unreasonable, if that is indeed its one and only purpose. Rio Tinto is a huge global concern and a few hundred million bucks is not a big deal for them. The original Alcan permit allowed for an amount of water that would require seven turbines altogether, I believe.
I am still puzzled by the previous report that RTA wanted to increase its water draw by 3 cms (144 increased to 147) and the claim that the second tunnel needed to be completed for that reason…looks like it will remain a mystery.
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