Site C Gets Environmental Assessment Certificate
Prince George, B.C. – The Site C dam project has been granted an environmental assessment certificate from the Provnce. There are 77 legally binding conditions attached to that approval including:
- Establish a fund of $20 million to compensate for lost agricultural lands and activities. The funds will be used to support enhancement projects that improve agricultural land, productivity or systems;
- Develop a Wetland Mitigation and Compensation Plan and monitor construction and operation activities that could cause changes in wetland function;
- Develop an Aboriginal Business Participation Strategy to maximize opportunities for Aboriginal businesses;
- Implement on-site health care with physician and nursing services to manage non-urgent issues for the workforce residing in camps;
- Develop protocols for application of construction methods, equipment, material and timing of activities to mitigate adverse effects to wildlife and wildlife habitat;
- Build 50 rental units in Fort St. John, of which 40 will be used for BC Hydro housing and 10 will be available for low-to-moderate income households. Upon completion of the construction phase, the 40 worker housing units will be made available to low-to-moderate income households;
- In collaboration with a Cultural and Heritage Resources Committee that includes Aboriginal groups, develop and implement mitigation measures to manage effects on cultural resources;
- Design the installation and use of a trap-and-haul facility as part of a fish passage management plan;
- Establish three new boat launch/day use sites and provide approximately $200,000 for a Community Recreation Site Fund; and
- Monitor greenhouse gas emissions from the reservoir for the first ten years of operations as part of a Greenhouse Gases Monitoring and Follow-up Program.
The Minister of Environment and the Minster of Forests, decided that Site C is in the public interest and that the benefits provided by the project outweigh the risks of significant adverse environmental, social and heritage effects.
The project is estimated to cost $7.9 billion dollars, and would produce enough energy to power the equivalent of 450 thousand homes in B.C. annually.
While the environmental assessment certificate has been approved, that doesn’t mean construction could start immediately. There still needs to be a commitment from the provincial government that it is willing to spend the $7.9 billion on this project.
The project has also received federal approval with 80 conditions. (click here for full federal statement)
The District of Hudson’s Hope has been actively trying to have the proposed project be the subject of an independent and expert review of whether Site C is needed or what the actual cost will be.
District of Hudson’s Hope Mayor, Gwen Johannson says it’s too early to say what her community’s next step will be, “I will wait to see what the wish of Council will be”.
Comments
Get the shovels out.
Should be an agreement to train and employee those that have taken apprenticeship training, that’s how hundreds of trades people to day received their Journeyman tickets. Hire and train BC workers for BC jobs.
They may generate enough electricity to power 450,000 homes annually in BC, however we don’t have 450,000 home’s that need the power. Nor do we have a long waiting list of industry that needs the power, so why build it.???
Perhaps to supply power to the good old USA, or to provide contracts to those who will build the dam, and as a consequence provide some short term jobs. Or is this a **job security program** for BC Hydro.
Seems like a hell of a lot of money to spend on a questionable project.
I think the people of BC deserve some honesty from this Government. Is it possible that they could (even for a minute) tell the truth about something they are doing.? One can only hope.
In the 1940’s the John Hart hydro electric complex was built generating 125 mega watts of electrical power near Campbell river on the island. At the the total power consumption on the island was only half that. People argued against the plant saying that amount of added power will never be needed. Today the island consumes about 3000 mw’s.
Site C is also required to backup the nonfirm generation of the IPP’s also the costly inefficent wind farms.
Interesting how we never hear how the wonderful wind farm out of Dawson creek is doing. Seems like a secretive taxpayer funded mony hole.
Palopu, 15 years ago BC had about 350,000 fewer households than today. It’s going to take at least 10 years, if not longer, to build. Plus I would argue our per capita consumption of electricity is increasing too. Do we need it today. No. In 15 or 20 years from now? I would think so. Maybe longer than that but why have a system that’s always at maximum capacity? Some reasonable surplus from peak consumption is good.
I agree with the two above posters. Demand for electricity is only going up. If we sell some in the short term to the USA, so what?
no don’t sell it to the states they don’t pay their bills. secondly lets revise our hydro rates and get it down to affordable rates. thirdly ramp up the generators to max capacity on existing hydro dams
Palpou, you have been moaning about this project for years. Read Irritated’s comments repeatedly in your head. Then accept it.
How do we know that we are producing electricity at maximum capacity. Does anyone have any figures to back that up.
When you consider that most pulp mills in BC have gone to generating a lot of their own electricity, and take into consideration all the industry that has shut down in BC, you would have a hard time convincing me that we are at capacity. We will always be at capacity if every time we get into a surplus situation we sell it to the USA.
The reason for the dam is due to fracking. Fracking takes a lot of power. Most frack sites use gas to produce the electricity they need, but it causes a large amount of pollution. Some of the largest LNG sites are too close to Fort St. John to allow them to run their sites on gas. Site C will provide clean power to run the Frack sites.
Selling electricity to the US is smart and should not be discouraged. In Canada we hold water back during night and let it flow to create power during peak times. The US does not allow water to be controlled this way and they run at a constant flow. We take advantage of this by buying their cheap power at night, and then we sell them power back in the day at a much higher rate.
Power is sold to the states almost everyday. Powerex also trades between US utilities using BC generation as a guarantee.
There is ongoing uphgrades to existing generation.
One reason for rising rates are the expensive contracts awarded to IPP’s on top of the added cost of building site c to back them up.
No one said we are currently at capacity. However, if we don’t keep increasing generation sources then eventually we will be at capacity. Planning and building major generation projects that need 10 to 20 years from concept to reality well in advance of the need is just smart. Waiting until we are near or at capacity to start building and then having power capacity issues for 10 or more years is not smart.
Long term, large scale hydro appears to have the lowest environmental footprint and operating cost.
With the one or two power outages each week in the Peace Region’s two major cities, this will for sure correct that issue. It is annoying to have the power go out for the most stupidest reasons and it takes hours to fix a city of darkness. The power system is old in Fort St John and Dawson Creek and can’t handle it all anymore. One gust of wind and bam there goes the power. Or a bird that is stupid enough to land on a transmission line with one foot can knock the entire power grid off while it lies dead on the ground. This kind of stuff rarely happens in larger communities and it’s much worse in the winter. I think Site C would be good for this area, despite all the hype about the dangers and inconveniences of the project which we all know about.
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