Williston Reservoir Level Battle – The Sequel
Mackenzie, B.C.- The battle over maintaining the level of the Williston Lake reservoir has returned.
B.C. Hydro has been taking steps to have the right to reduce the minimum level of the reservoir to 2140 feet above sea level. It’s a level the Mayor of Mackenzie says would be disastrous for his community.
According to Mayor Pat Crook, dropping the reservoir to that level would negatively impact Mackenzie and the industries located in the District of Mackenzie “The pulp mill would have to make multi- million dollar modifications to their effluent system and their water intake system.” He says the District of Mackenzie would also be impacted “We’d have to spend up to $7 million dollars to get our effluent discharge line to a river, and because of the (low) dilution rate, the chances of getting permitted to dump the effluent into the river are slim for both the pulp mill and the District of Mackenzie.”
He says there would also be an impact on log dumps, and barge systems which move logs to the pulpmill. “The Canfor log transporter would be down for possibly up to 4 months instead of just two, the log dumps up the lake, for all of the companies, would have to undergo modifications to allow them to dump logs or land a barge.”
Although 250News has requested an impact statement from Canfor, such a response was not provided by publication time.
Mayor Crook says he has been busy talking to local industry and residents to bring them up to speed on the matter. “We’re going to have to form a local committee to get their voices heard” says Crook who hopes to send their concerns to the Water Comptroller.
This is not the first time the Williston levels have been in dispute. The matter was present nearly 20 years ago, and eventually resulted in the “Williston Variable Operating Level regulation” which was set in August of 2007. Under that rule, the reservoir is to be kept at a minimum of 2147 feet above sea level. That is the lowest mark the reservoir has been in more than 30 years.
Under the regulation, BC Hydro needs approval from the Comptroller of Water Rights to draw the reservoir down below the 2147 mark. The regulation states “Adverse system energy supply conditions caused by low inflows into system reservoirs and/or Force Majeure event(s) within the electrical generating/transmission system, would provide the only reason for BC Hydro to seek approval for such a drawdown.”
According to a BC Hydro presentation, there are a number of things which are beyond its control “and create uncertainty in the ability to meet provincial load in the most economic fashion”. Those influences, which create “uncertainty” are listed as:
- Provincial Load Demand
- Inflows locally, regionally, provincially
- Generation Availability
- Storage Availability
- Energy Market Conditions
BCHydro says it must “plan to manage those risks using all available operational flexibility in the system” and that water between the levels of 2147 ft and 2140 ft “provides additional operational flexibility when planning for these uncertainties”. According to a BC Hydro presentation, ” Energy content between 2140 and 2147 is 1160 GWh”, that’s about 1/5 of the power to be generated annually by Site C when it is completed.
Comments
If B.C.Hydro can foresee the future so clearly, as in needing site C, why did they fill the reservoir so completely to begin with? Will the same situation be occurring behind that one too in thirty years or so?
Perhaps they should bear the mitigation costs of the problems this will cause before they are allowed to seek a further drop on minimum level.
It’s called greed, hydro just want to make more power to sell. Has to do with nothing else.
The details are a little fuzzy in my mind, but this is indeed a rehash of the discussion 20 years ago… which was a discussion of even earlier events. It was never any surprise to the mills that the reservoir level could go down to 2140 from the day the Peace hydro system was developed. When the mills were built (which they never would have been if the reservoir weren’t there in the first place), Hydro had warned them of this and even offered funding to assist with extending the intake/discharge systems, but the mills elected to gamble and did not proceed with the necessary work.
Twenty years ago, it looked like they were going to lose the gamble and they called foul and demanded the government step in to mitigate their poor decision making.
Here we go again.
Give more so you never fill up your gas tank.
Palopu I have explained how the power system operates before but for some inexplicable reason you ignore. I guess because it does not fit your mantra.
Can you name me one utility that does not buy and sell electricity?
Tarnfeather nailed it, its all in the water license.
This is actually round three of this fiasco..in the late 70’s they ran into this problem and the pulpmills revamped the entire intake system for getting water to the mill.
If BC Hydro would walk away from Site C, this problem would go with them.
seamutt: I was asking, if when B.C. Hydro first filled the reservoir, they knew that they would some day draw it down to 2140, why did they fill it completely? They had no clue to what filling it and then drawing in back down would cause?
This is the question I posed.
So when they fill behind the site C project, are they going to over fill it the same way and then when they draw it down, have the same problems as with the Williston reservoir, with regard to the barren slopes and dust?
My gas tank doesn’t cause problems when I use the gas.
Somehow the Liberals will have the taxpayer take care of this.
A reservoir cannot be held at one level. Levels are variable depending on usage and in flows.
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