Peace agriculture faces threat from hydro project

The province is considering building a brand new 750 megawatt dam on the Peace River, and some in BC’s agricultural sector are starting to weigh in.

Site E would be built at the confluence of the Peace and Alces rivers, close to the Alberta border, making it the fourth dam on the Peace. It is one of two new hydro projects in the early stages of consideration by the province, the other being on the Homathko River near Bute Inlet.

At a June 15 press conference announcing the proposed projects, BC Minister of Energy and Climate Solutions Adrian Dix heralded the benefits of dams: “Large hydro is good for the climate; large hydro is good for the economy.”

Ken Boon, farmer and president of the Peace Valley Landowners Association (PVLA), was an outspoken opponent of the Site C dam, recently christened the John Horgan Dam.

The dam went ahead despite vocal criticism from environmentalists and many in the farm sector, and Boon saw some of his most fertile valley bottom farmland expropriated and flooded.

Boon is now speaking out against Site E, arguing that building more large hydro projects endangers the unique agricultural potential of the Peace. He says the region is blessed with some of “the very best farmland in northern BC, Class 1 farmland, in a low-elevation valley” with “the capabilities of growing cantaloupe, melons [and] corn.” Those are crops that can’t be reliably grown elsewhere in the north.

“It could be argued that we’re not utilizing [the land] to the fullest right now, but very likely that will need to change in the future, and that won’t be possible if it’s underwater,” he says.

Site E was first identified as a potential spot for a dam in the 1950s. The site was studied more intensively in the 1970s, at which time it was abandoned in favour of Site C.

BC Hydro’s original application for Site C to the British Columbia Utilities Commission (BCUC) in 1980 explained that Site C was “considerably more economic” than Site E.

BC Hydro estimates at the time indicated that a low-elevation dam at Site E could flood 19,025 acres. The BC government has not released updated figures.

The Clean Energy Act, passed in 2010 under the Gordon Campbell government, prohibited – with the exception of Site C – the development of large hydro projects on all river systems in BC. The act explicitly bans a number of specific projects, including Site E. The Eby government intends to change this by introducing amendments to the act in the fall.

Besides the potential for significant farmland loss, the other problematic aspect of large hydro projects, Boon notes, is the fiscal pressure on taxpayers through cost overruns, ongoing maintenance and “endless mitigation measures.”

Boon says some of the mitigation measures involved in dams are not just expensive but rather unusual, giving the example of fish being transported past the Site C dam.

“Every day, I watch a truck go by our place here loaded with fish that they catch at the dam, and then they bring it upriver from us…they catch the fish that are bumping their noses up against the dam, and then they load them in the truck and haul them around, put them up above the dam,” he explains.

(BC Hydro’s website for the project explains that a permanent “upstream fish passage” facility captures, tags and transports fish “by truck upstream past the dam site.”)

Instead of hydro megaprojects, Boon advocates increasing the use of alternative energy sources including solar and wind, arguing that BC Hydro is not moving with the times.

“They just seem stuck in this 1960s mindset of ‘well, we need power, let’s build another dam,’” he says.

The BC Agriculture Council declined comment on the threat Site E poses to agriculture in the Peace. Country Life in BC requested comments from the BC agriculture ministry and the BC energy ministry but did not receive a response from either.

Delta South MLA Ian Paton, agriculture critic for the provincial Conservatives, is waiting to see more detailed information, particularly on how much productive farmland would be flooded.

“On the one hand, I’m all for saying we need to create more electric power in BC, but on the other hand, do we want to lose another bunch of farmland that’s capable of growing food?” says Paton.

 

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