On April 19, BC Premier Gordon Campbell announced that the Peace River ‘Site C’ Hydroelectric Project had advanced to Phase Three. It’s taken forty years for our province to come full-circle and realize that, once again, northern British Columbia is a significant piece of our provinces future and our bankroll. Forty years ago, it was the WAC Bennett Dam that provided BC with home-grown electricity. Before that, it was Kenney Dam that backstopped the turbines at Kemano and the Alcan aluminum smelters powered by them.
Three months after the Site C announcement, I’m surprised at what appears to be the tacit endorsement of Site C by the mainstream press who’ve parroted the government’s claim that Site C will generate enough electricity to power 500,000 homes. I don’t dispute the claim; I’m just puzzled why no one, other than the odd blogger, made the connection between Site C and the Highway 37 Powerline Project. Isn’t anyone curious why, in a period of fiscal restraint, we need a $300 Million power line to be built from Terrace through the BC wilderness to Dease Lake, population 650. Even the BCTF with scores of newly unemployed teachers, missed it. Plus, no one bothered to ask where the power for the project would come from.
Site C isn’t about housing starts it’s about kick starting the mining industry in northwest BC where, according to the Mining Association of BC (MABC) $176 Million was spent in exploration in 2007 alone. It takes a lot of juice to power a mine and, as the MABC argues, mine development in the area is being held back by the present lack of electrical power. Mine development in the region, it says, could support nearly 11,000 jobs and $300 million in annual government revenues.
So, we seem fully prepared to sacrifice more Peace River land so that we can incubate mining in Northern BC. Nearly three months after the Site C announcement, there appears to be little standing in the way. BC Hydro affiliates started talks with local landowners almost immediately after Campbell stepped away from the microphone and, although the Treaty 8 Tribal Association and the Sierra Club have expressed their opposition to the project, dissenting voices seem muffled.
Similarly, the Highway 37 project looks like it’s a go as well. Compared to the $6 Billion+ required for Site C, $300 Million for a power line seems like a bargain especially when there’s a promise of $300 Million annually. As for the First Nations voice, according to Highway37.com (sponsored by MABC) both the Gitxsan and the Tahltan have expressed their support.
Certainly, projects like this will diversify and stabilize the economy of Northern BC which, in many respects has changed little from the days of my childhood. The area is still dotted by small towns whose dependency upon forestry, and often one employer, has left them vulnerable to low, hard-to-predict lumber and pulp prices and to the mountain pine beetle that has damaged an area of commercial forests larger than England in size. In mining, the north once more answers the call of government and consumptive demands of lower-mainland suburbia. Essentially, I’m pro-business, but without a mindful and balanced press providing sober second thought we are destined to make mistakes.
