Power of the upper Pitt River

COMMENT: BC is running amok with small hydro projects and the government refuses to bring some order and public discussion to the assignment of water licences. In this context, the Upper Pitt River projects are just seven more in a stack of hundreds.

See also NO to transmission lines in BC's parks

Phil Melnychuk
Maple Ridge News
Jul 07 2007

With Boise Creek and Remote Peak in the background, Chris Laustrup says seven run-of-river sites are too much in too-small an area with a huge potential for outdoor recreation. Phil Melnychuk, the News

The battered crew cab stops in a clearing in the upper Pitt River valley and Dianna Laustrup runs out from a little A-frame cabin with a welcoming wave.

She's soon joined by her husband Chris, toddler in tow, wearing smiles.

It's a scene from somewhere in the past: Homesteading family battling hostile wilderness, greets dusty, thirsty visitors on tough journey.

For Chris, though, it's a battle to preserve the wilderness, or as much as of it as possible, from the hungry metropolis to the southwest.

Voracious Vancouver continues to grow. In the late 1990s, a gravel mine was proposed next to the upper Pitt River. Residents rallied and fought it to a standstill.

Now, Run of River Power Inc. wants to put seven turbines on the eight largest mountain creeks that feed the upper Pitt River and Chris is preparing for another battle.

If approved by the Environmental Assessment Office, the power plants will produce 161 megawatts for B.C. Hydro's power grid, enough to light up TVs and computers in 55,000 homes.

But don't talk to Chris about the environmental side and concerns about possible effects on fish or wildlife habitat when part of a stream flows down a three- or four-kilometre pipeline into a turbine.

He doesn't want to get into that.

Chris's main objection is that the stations are located in a wilderness valley, literally on the doorstep of two million people in greater Vancouver.

"I don't need any more information.

"I knew the day this project came out that this project was wrong for the valley," he said.

The lush upper Pitt River valley should be a recreational showcase, a valuable contrast to the peaks of rocks and ice that lie within the surrounding Golden Ears and Garibaldi provincial parks.

"From a land-use perspective, this is totally wrong," he said.

Grizzly bears, wolverines and hot springs dot the upper Pitt.

"Yet we're willing to put that in?" he said of the proposed power project. "No, not a chance."

Chris isn't against all run-of-river power, but any project should serve just the valley, a 780-square-kilometre area.

Seven power stations would be too close to Vancouver and too close to his business, Vancouver Wilderness River Retreat.

On the bumpy ride from his home up to Boise Creek, he also points out that run-of-river isn't the same as micro power, where people set up small turbines to power individual homes. He's just about to start the application process for that himself, he adds.

What he really wants to see is completion of the land-use or watershed management plan, which will attempt to reconcile the competing uses, started by the Pitt River Area Watershed Network in 2002.

At Bucklin Creek, where water from the heavy snow pack from last winter still tumbles down, Run of River Power Inc. wants to put an intake at the top of the 13-kilometre long stream.

From there, a 4.5-km pipe will snake down the mountain, taking a portion of the stream flow, which will drive a turbine at the powerhouse.

Once through the powerhouse, the water returns to the stream at normal temperature.

But Danny Gerak wonders about one of the claims made by a Run-of-River environmental consultant about the creek.

He was told an "impassable barrier" to fish was just a few metres from the location of the proposed powerhouse.

With no fish past that point, the environmental impact of the project would be reduced.

But Gerak returned soon after to that barrier, went upstream and caught a rainbow trout.

"You guys are trained biologists. How can you miss that? This is not an impassable barrier."

He passed the tip on to Fisheries and Oceans Canada, which said it was referred to the Environmental Assessment Office.

The response from the federal department has left Gerak less than inspired. "It almost seems like they've given up on fisheries, everywhere.

"They don't seem to care anymore."

Gerak's been running the Pitt River Lodge for 18 years and says the power plants would likely mean the end of his fishing and wilderness lodge.

People don't want to see powerlines and generating stations when they come to the upper Pitt, he says.

At Steve Creek, another stream proposed for a power station, a pipeline would run four kilometres upstream from the location near a logging road where it cascades into a narrow canyon.

The canyon itself is almost that narrow, Garek points out.

"They want to put in a three-foot pipe. That would take every bit of water here," he said.

In early July, the water from the last winter's near-record snowpack still rushes down the upper Pitt, which is running a frosty turquoise.

It's running about a metre higher than normal for this time of year, Garek notes.

It's in the upper Pitt, fed by those streams, where Garek takes his clients and launches his fishing rafts.

If the project goes ahead, power transmission lines could snake over the river, across the mountains and cut through Pinecone Burke park, to Squamish, which itself raises environmentalist's hackles because it would give off-road access to the area.

A pipeline may take only part of the streams flowing into upper Pitt, but fish need access to the entire river that is provided by normal flows, he says.

On Garek's business website, visitors gush about their experiences fishing the upper Pitt. Chinook, chum, sea-run bull trout, sockeye and the largest run of wild coho in the Lower Mainland all rely on the river remaining pristine.

But if the fish disappear, the clients will stop staying at the 12-bed lodge. Already, he's lost two months of bookings a year since the decline of steelhead trout fishing, so now he's looking at non-fishing activities, such as bear watching, to attract guests.

Run-of-River Inc. has said it wouldn't operate the power stations during times of low flow – as a means of ensuring all the water remains in the stream during the season.

But who will police that? Gerak asks.

"How do you stop them after that?

"I know once they get their foot in the door, there's no stopping it, no matter what. They're going to take the money, over the fish, there's no doubt about it."

Even the construction process scares him.

All the work takes place literally at stream's edge.

"As soon as they start cutting this ground back," the run-off of sediment is going to be huge, he said.

"This should be Vancouver's showcase," he says.

With the Olympics in 2010, "This should be a showcase about what B.C.'s all about," Gerak said.

"I've been up here since I was a kid and I want to make sure the next generation gets to see it."