SCOTT SIMPSON, Vancouver Sun, April 21, 2010
Leaders weigh benefits and drawbacks of massive project on the Peace River
The provincial government and BC Hydro have a lot of deals to strike in northeast British Columbia if they want public support for the proposed $6.6-billion Site C dam project.
Communities in the region want to benefit from development of the dam -- a multi-year economic boom providing 7,600 direct local jobs and 35,000 direct and indirect jobs provincewide -- but not if the megaproject threatens drinking-water supplies or overwhelms community services, northeast mayors say.
Northeast first nations, meanwhile, boycotted Premier Gordon Campbell's Monday announcement that Site C will proceed to a third, detailed stage of study in preparation for construction of the project at a location on the Peace River downstream of the W.A.C. Bennett and Peace Canyon dams.
Liz Logan, Tribal Chief of the Treaty 8 first nations, said she and fellow chiefs representing northeast aboriginals are meeting on Thursday to determine how best to express their "outrage" that the project is going ahead despite unresolved grievances dating back to the construction of the Bennett Dam in the 1960s.
Meanwhile, Blair Lekstrom, minister of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources, said Tuesday the government recognizes its obligations to both aboriginal and non-aboriginal communities in the northeast and is confident that issues can be resolved.
Mayors from Hudson's Hope, Dawson Creek, Fort St. John and Taylor attended Campbell's announcement, which took place at the Bennett Dam.
The project does not require an unconditional approval from aboriginals, but the province has a constitutional duty to consult them and accommodate their concerns.
Logan said the chiefs do not feel there has been sufficient first-nations consultation in the first two stages of the project.
"The chiefs talked about the pros and cons of attending [the announcement] but in the end they chose not to go because they wanted to send that message, that they disagreed with the province making the announcement to move to stage three," Logan said in a telephone interview.
Logan said a wide array of northeast B.C. resource developments, including forestry and natural gas, need to be addressed as well as "past infringements" for two previous dams developed on the Peace system.
Treaty 8 bands are also concerned that they have not received adequate financial support from BC Hydro to complete so-called "traditional use"
studies that would enable them to gauge the impact on the environment and on local wildlife from flooding more than 80 kilometres of river valley for a major hydroelectric reservoir.
Fred Jarvis, mayor of Taylor, said council has taken a position that it neither supports nor opposes the project. If it proceeds, Taylor wants to take full advantage of the "boom" -- but not at the cost of local concerns such as the quality of drinking water.
"There will be tremendous turbidity while they are working [on the dam],"
Jarvis said. "We know that it will inhibit the water getting into our wells. It will also give us more treatment difficulties."
Mike Bernier, Mayor of Dawson Creek, believes that the decision to advance the project "pretty well guarantees the fact that once the public consultation and environmental are done that we will have a new dam on the Peace River. "It's going to be great for the region in a lot of ways," he said. "The social spinoffs, the jobs that are going to be created by this.
From a city's perspective we are looking at making sure ... that the environmental assessment is done properly, that public consultations take place, as they say."
Bruce Lantz, Mayor of Fort St. John, said his council has taken no position on Site C "but we have for a long time said that if it is a green light for the project, then our first concern is going to be what benefits might accrue to the community and to the region. "They are looking at 7,600 [direct construction] jobs.
"That can have impacts on our services, whether it be policing or health care or social services. We need to make sure we are compensated for those impacts because we may have to expend a fair bit of taxpayers' money to deal with that situation."
Minister Lekstrom said the "first and foremost" objective is to get the project through an environmental assessment -- a process expected to commence in 2011 and last two years. He said in a telephone interview that he believes he has a "good working relationship" with Treaty 8. "At the end of the day I would hope that we are able to reach some formal agreement so that Treaty 8 can see the benefits of this project should it proceed and receive its environmental assessment," Lekstrom said. "But not only Treaty 8; I want the region [as well] to realize some regional economic benefits. Local employment is a key issue."
He said he does not want to see the region overwhelmed by the needs of thousands of short-term residents who would arrive to work on the project.
"We want to sit down and work with our region communities, the regional districts, to address the impacts that they see.
"We want to sit at the table and find a way to work through those, so that the people of the region and the individual communities don't have to bear the burden of such a significant project."
ssimpson@vancouversun.com
