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[chris gadsden]

A lot of well read and intelligent people here, is this good or bad for BC?

[clarkii]

Depends on which sector you are looking at.

Environmentally the river will be deprived of nutrients as they are trapped at the dam, and fish populations will be fragmented.

Energy sector there are more jobs.


Just some food for thought, last week the minister of FLNRO came under fire for the proposed wildlife allocation, now the government has announced the site C dam. 
Seems they are hoping Christmas will decrease any public outcry.

[chris gadsden]

Depends on which sector you are looking at.

Environmentally the river will be deprived of nutrients as they are trapped at the dam, and fish populations will be fragmented.

Energy sector there are more jobs.


Just some food for thought, last week the minister of FLNRO came under fire for the proposed wildlife allocation, now the government has announced the site C dam. 
Seems they are hoping Christmas will decrease any public outcry.

I have a feeling F/N concerns will halt it in its tracks.

[chris gadsden]

From Sierra Club BC.

"It's a dam shame.

A dam shame that the provincial government just announced they will be going ahead with the proposed Site C dam in the Peace Valley.

The B.C. cabinet had a chance to apply the brakes to the $8.78 billion (and counting) project. Instead, they chose to expose British Columbians to spiralling debt and legal risk from First Nations lawsuits – in order to produce electricity we currently don’t need and will have to sell at a loss.

Not a word was said about the impact on Treaty 8 First Nations, whose heritage sites will be drowned under water, moose populations decimated, and fish contaminated with toxic methyl mercury from decaying vegetation – a human rights scandal that will be challenged in court.

Not a word about the rich alluvial soils that would be submerged by Site C – prime farmland that has the potential to provide healthy, affordable fruits and vegetables for more than a million British Columbians.

And what are we getting for all this expense and destruction? 165 jobs.

Compare that to the jobs that would come from producing the same amount of power from geothermal: 1,870 jobs.

It’s power we don’t need at a price we can’t afford. We will pay and pay for generations.

We’ll pay through BC Hydro rate hikes and a potential credit downgrade for B.C.’s debt (which will cause the cost of borrowing to increase).

And we will pay at the grocery store. California is experiencing its worst drought in 1,200 years (most likely as a result of climate change) which threatens our supply of fruit and vegetables, driving up the price.

Transforming the Peace Valley into a reliable source of healthy, affordable fare for one million people would improve our food security in an uncertain world and contribute to a thriving agricultural sector.

We are not taking this sitting down.
And I hope you’ll continue to stand with us.

In the coming months, Sierra Club BC and our partners in the region will focus our energies on supporting the Treaty 8 Nations and Peace Valley landowners. We will continue to mobilize public opposition to Site C. We will spread the word about the positive alternatives – both economically and environmentally – to the costly white elephant that is Site C.

Together, we will stop Site C.

For the Peace"

[GordJ]

A lot of things about this project surprise me. I first heard about Site C in the 60's and there was some resistance, primarily from the Pecks who were, to all intents and purposes, the only people living in the area at that time. Their main concern was losing the family homestead and they were a long time settlers of the area. There were no natives in the area and now I hear that it is a sacred ground and they want it protected? The river already has two dams upstream so the concerns Clarkii voices are kind of irrelevant because any negative impacts that dams might have are already present, aren't they?
The dam will provide a good supply of energy for years and years to come and earth filled dams are said to get stronger with time unlike concrete dams which have a life time. At the present time the only way to store electricity effectively is to keep water behind a dam and BC Hydro is in a position to be buying  power at night because when the need for power drops at night the coal plants, gas plants and nuclear plants can't just shut down but a hydro plant can. This means that Hydro can buy cheap power at night, from gas, coal or nuke plants all over the continent and store power in the form of water behind the dam for our use when demand and costs climb during the day.
I haven't been back in the area since the 70's but I can't imagine that there are a lot of people to be displaced and one thing the area has is a lot of empty land. When you google earth the area there is very little development on the "other" side of the river from the road.
I think I would much rather see what I consider to be relatively minor impacts from this project than the impacts that providing the same power from gas plants or other generation solutions that are now available.
And just a few years ago we were constantly inundated with howls about how the natives were destroying the Fraser salmon runs with their nets and now they are saviours of the environment? Honestly, go through a few of the reserves around and come back and tell me how they are respecting the land with their cars abandoned beside the old washers and derelict trampolines.

[Fish Assassin]

Damn if you do and damn if you don't (no pun intended)

[nosey]

I've fished in Dinosaur Lake in behind the dam at Hudson Hope, the fishing isn't that bad. As I understand it a lot of the water stored in and power generated for site C will be used for fracking which I'm against. I took the governments of BC about 100 yrs to rack up 35 billion dollars worth of dept and the liberals have pretty well doubled that in the last twelve yrs. this will add another 8 bil to that, although I don't know whether hydro's dept is added into the provincial dept. I guess it has it's pros and cons and only time will tell. It's hard to trust any project that both political parties in BC agree upon, there's gotta be a trick somewhere.

[nosey]

I do know for sure that it's gonna destroy a lot of elk and deer winter habitat a few years back the wife and I counted 120 mule deer before we lost count all on ground that will be flooded, all right off the highway between Hudson Hope  and Fort   Saint John.

[chris gadsden]

http://commonsensecanadian.ca/site-c-dam-govt-ignores-rules-faces-multiple-lawsuits/

[chris gadsden]

Another opinion. http://northerninsights.blogspot.ca/

[islanddude]

 I think this dam is going to be built. They have been planning this for a long time. Working behind the scenes, changing the environmental laws, banking restrictions, foreign ownership of Canadian companies. They have the majority of the Judicial branch supporting them along with our elected officials.
 God help us if they ever pass the Trans Pacific Partnership Trade agreement.
 There is hope though if you read the story about a landowner in Peru who beat a gold mining company who wanted to take her land for an open pit mine. You can find it on the web site Common Dreams.