The BC Hydro Site C Dam in Northern B.C has been a failed project since the 1970's when it was proposed, opposed and shelved. The 60-meter-high mega dam would cost over 10 billion dollars to create power BC Hydro says we don't need now but might in the future. Indigenous Nations whose territories Site C would flood point out under Treaty 8, they have entrenched constitutional rights to hunt, trap and fish on the would be flooded land. Economists have shown that construction costs of Site C would create at least $5000 in debt for every household in BC, and environmentalists have pointed out that any future energy needs could easily by met for cheaper prices by renewable energy sources like wind and solar.
Many had hoped that with the election of the NDP as the BC provincial government that the project would again be cancelled based on the NDP's pre-election promises. Especially when the BC Utilities Commission tabled a highly critical report finding that Site C was was behind schedule, would be over 2 billion over budget, and had unresolved risks including tension cracks.
Unfortunately, NDP Premier John Horgan announced that the project was “past the point of no return” and that they could move forward with construction. This has been met with continued resistance, led by the West Moberly and Prophet River First Nations, whose land would be flooded if the project continues.
Wendy Holm has been an important part of this resistance. The past president of the B.C. Institute of Agrologists , resource economist and award-winning columnist, – she has recently released a new book titled, “Damming the Peace – The Hidden Costs of the Site C Dam” (Formac Lorimer Books, 2018) which is a comprehensive compilation of the many reasons the project is such a disaster.
Below is a Fire This Time interview with Wendy Holm about the Site C Dam, the ongoing resistance to the project and her important new book.
Could you share with us some of the history of how you got involved in the campaign to stop the Site C Dam?
I got involved as a professional and my involvement has remained as a professional. I was asked by the Peace Valley Environment Association and the BC Womens Institute who were intervenors in the Site C Environmental Impact Assessment process to do an analysis of the agricultural impact of the Site C Dam. As an agri-economist I spent a lot of time studying all the materials and then presented my findings as an expert witness before the Joint Federal-Provincial Review Panel on the Site C Dam.
What I learned as an Agrologist about the impact of this project appalled me. I assumed that we would have had more traction at the Joint Review Panel and then I assumed we would have certainly had a lot of traction at the BC Utilities Commission (BCUC). I am appalled that it's going ahead because not only the agricultural value- but so many other values are just transgressed by this project which makes no sense at all. When I did the work as an expert witness I was a Professional Agrologist (P.Ag.). I have since retired but I have stayed involved as progression speaking about the implications of the project on agriculture and food security issues.
I just have not been able to step back from this. I've been Professional Agrologist in Canada for over 40 years and, with the exception of the dismantling of the Canadian Wheat Board, I have never seen such a transgression of public policy. It is such a transgression of public policy that it really strikes and issues of democracy. So I have not been able to walk way.
If you're talking to someone who hasn't heard about the project before, how do you summarize the project and the reasons you're opposed to it?
I'm pretty careful to make sure I stay within my area of expertise, as an Agrologist. I'll tell you the agricultural impact, and then that leads into why I wrote the book because I wanted others to speak, about the other aspects.
So the Site C Dam will impact over 30,000 acres of agricultural land. It will flood half that land with water. The rest of the land will have stability and wave impact issues. Of the land that is flooded almost ten thousand acres of that is really high quality agricultural land. In a Class 1 climate for agriculture, which makes it some of the most important horticulture land in all of Canada. I say to people who don’t understand agriculture, “If you were a vegetable, you would pray your children grow up in a alluvial soil.” Alluvial soils are riverbed soils. They are free draining soils and horticulture needs to be constantly irrigated so they need these free draining alluvial soils to grow veggies. These alluvial soils combine with the Peace River valley running East-West. It's one of the very few East-West running valleys in BC. So the sun gets up in the morning in the east, travels the length of the valley, and then goes down at its westerly end in the evening. Where most of our north-south running valleys have mountains on the East and West - so there is a little window of sun in the middle of the day. The Peace River valley gets full sunshine all day and because of the micro-climate and because of the latitude in the summertime where you get so many hours of daylight - this Peace River valley has the same capability as the Fraser and Okanagan valleys. It has the same crop capabilities with higher yields because of the higher periods of daylight. We're talking about 10,000 acres of prime prime prime horticulture soil that are going to be destroyed by this dam.
BC imports over 60% of the vegetables we could grow here, and we import from California and Mexico – both of which are suffering all sorts of constraints for production – water being one of them. So to be over 60% dependent on an area like California makes no sense at all in terms of the prices and continuity of supply. Vegetables are the building blocks of life. You can't give kids vegetable flavoured chips and think you’re' giving them veggies. 1 in 4 children is under the poverty line in B.C. and you're pricing vegetables out of children's diets.
From a food security standpoint this land is exceptionally important. It has the productive capacity to meet the nutritional requirements of between 1 and 2 million people a year - forever. When you look at the rights of today's generation and the rights of future generations - none of these issues have been taken into consideration in the process of evaluating the costs of this dam. We've looked at energy and it's become clear that it makes no sense on an energy standpoint, but we have not looked at the other issues. When you add up the cumulative impact of this dam and you include issues like food security, biodiversity, the impact on First Nations cultural heritage, issues of human health, the impact on the Athabasca Delta, the way Site C supports fracking in the North and other concerns - you begin to understand why it is absurd on a public policy level that we would go forward with this project.
There's one other area that’s a really important impact of this. When I finished my work as an Agrologist and I made my presentation to the Joint Panel and I saw the area of food being ignored, and all these other areas ignored. I became frustrated and I thought, “How can any government be so unconnected with the needs and the rights of its citizens?” At some point the government was supposed to say, “Gee. We made a mistake.” Even the Liberals before the NDP should have said, “We hear what you’re saying and we're going to come up with some other options.” They didn't. They forged ahead with this to get it past “the point of no return” and that starts to sound pretty bizarre. Why would they say that? So no one can stop this? Because it's not about energy, so what's it about?
I was rummaging around in my closet and my hand hit upon a PVC tube with some maps in it. In 1988, I produced the book, “Water and Free Trade” - drawing together 14 experts, again with the same publisher (Lorimer). This book looked at the inclusion of water in trade agreements and what it meant on a public policy level. There was a University of Manitoba Professor who had his students draw up two maps – with all the North American rivers and existing Dams and then a map on top of this – these are transparent – all of the proposed continental water sharing projects that had been put on the table by the engineering firms.
In the late 1950s the US Army Corps of Engineers was told to come up with some options,to keep American from running out of water. So they flew over Canada and mapped all of the water resources of North America. They then met with Canadian and British Columbia officials and the three dams on the Columbia River and a series of dams on the Peace River were planned at that time. The Army Corps of Engineers in effect, although it wasn't phrased this way, planned to be able to create catchment areas in Canada and I guess in Alaska to bring that water down through a series of watercourses into the US.
So I'm reaching in my closet, annoyed at why this project is so doggedly going ahead, and I came across these maps and put them up on my closest mirror. And I can still feel the hair go up on my arms - there is the Peace River and there are the lines right through the Peace River down to the United States. They had different different colour lines for each plan – and they all ran through the Peace River Valley like a rainbow coalition to bring water East here of the Rockies. And really I hadn't focused on that aspect as much as the James Bay Diversion and others when the book was written and I though “OK, now I get it.”
So to me it explains a lot about why there is such a push on this project. Feeling frustrated with all of the other costs and all of the other issues that weren't being talked about - issues of large scale continental water sharing projects - I met with [book publisher] James Lorimer- actually we were in Havana, and I said, “You have to do this a book on this.” And he agreed.
I said that I wanted to draw together people who don't have oar in the water in this – the journalists, the professionals - who know the areas that we want to look at have them write chapters in this book and put it all on the table. So this book includes 15 chapters and includes the writing of a number of names that you would know to look at all of these areas. Andrew MacLeod, Joyce Nelson, Warren Bell, myself, Joan Sawicki, Brian Churchill, David Schindler...
David has a wonderful chapter looking at how dams are really Canada's strategy to hit its greenhouse gas emission reduction targets and they've been purported to be “green” - which they are not. In order to meet the targets there are over 100 hydro dams that are planned for Canada. This is going to raise a whole bunch of issues with respect to all of the things we're talking about for communities right across Canada.
Guy Dauncey reviews the costs of alternative energy. Andrew Macleod interviews indigenous organizer Helen Knott on the whole impact of these projects on aboriginal culture. Brian Churchill looks at biodiversity. Zoe Ducklow looks at what this “point of no return” actually means. Donald Cameron, a journalist from Nova Scotia, has written about how communities around the world have entrenched legal rights to the environment in their constitutions such that individual citizens can stand up and stop projects like this. The very last word in the book is given to dear Rafe Mair, who passed away. He wrote a beautiful chapter on civil disobedience.
How are you approaching opposing and stopping the dam now that the NDP government has approved the project to go ahead?
I'm an optimist. I still believe in democracy. This book is coming out April 1. Sarah Cox has a book from DeSmog coming out April as well. There's a whole bunch of events that are being planned around this. We are looking at attracting international attention. There's legal fights. We raised $80,000 for the West Moberly and Prophet River First Nations through the “Yellow Stakes” campaign. There will be more money coming into this now. In this legal action BC Hydro voluntarily stopped work the other day because their injunction is going to be heard July 23. So BC Hydro took the unprecedented step of stopping work pending this injunction. So I think there are a lot of people who are ready to stand up and defend this. I personally am ready to go on the line and defend this with everything I can.
There's certain things that are worth lying down in front of heavy equipment over, and in my opinion, this is one.
That's a good summary! We really appreciate you taking the time to do this interview, and all of your work on this project.
Follow Thomas Davies on Twitter: @thomasdavies59
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