Site C dam too be approved in BC Peace

Good to see all the support for corporate greed that is and will wipe out this province's amazing landscape and wildlife diversity.
Hey , but if ya land a good paying job out of it it's all good right?
Pretty sad.
 
45ACPKING said:
Good to see all the support for corporate greed that is and will wipe out this province's amazing landscape and wildlife diversity.
Hey , but if ya land a good paying job out of it it's all good right?
Pretty sad.
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Ya, I keep hearing those types of claims. From what I've seen with these dams is they don't wreck the amazing landscape and wildlife diversity sure hasn't been an issue from what I have seen. I know, I know it sounds good to say that, but that's not what I've seen. You're basically flooding a flood plain. Rivers change, create ox bow lakes etc and change the landscape on their own as well. The only constant is change. These dams while not perfect are a pretty good source of energy that doesn't require drilling for oil/gas along with all the negatives of that. One dam is a lot prettier than a landscape full of pumps. Coal, nuclear? No thanks. Until we get nuclear fusion, hydro electrical is the cleanest source of energy that I've seen. The reality is we will need more electricity. We will be using more and more of it. If cars like the Tesla continue and become more mainstream then the demand will be even greater.

So yes, good paying jobs, financial prosperity minimal impact on the environment as a whole and providing for what we will be needing. I know, it's truly horrible. I'm sure the same arguments were made over the Bennett dam in Hudson's hope. I can't travel down highway 29 without having to use evasive maneuvers to avoid deer and moose. Will there be changes? Yup. But even if you left it, nature also has a habit of changing, especially with water.
 
Hydro reservoirs release naturally occurring mercury in the soils in the form of methylmercury. This is bad but unavoidable.

There is no free lunch. Everything we consume comes with a price tag, to us and the environment.

We are all consumers. Choose wisely.
 
MD said:
I wrote an article in Trade Talk magazine a few years ago.

What I found out in the course of one interview amazed me:

George Ingham, president of United Power Limited says that B.C. is in the dark ages when it comes to solar power generation when the province is ideally located to generate power.

There are a lot of popular misconceptions to battle, he says, primarily the one that B.C.’s climate and weather and hours of sunlight are not conducive for solar power generation.

Solar modules can work at maximum efficiency in B.C., better than in Arizona or California, he said.

B.C. has the ideal temperature for solar,” Ingham explained. “For every degree over 72 degrees (22.2 Celsius) the module loses one-half of one percent per degree. “

The average temperature in B.C. is 62 degree Fahrenheit (16.6 Celsius), Ingham said, pointing out that all modules operating in B.C. operate at higher than their rated capacity.

Another point Ingham emphasizes is that in British Columbia, receives its sunlight at a 45 degree angle from the sun.

“At 45 degrees both the roof and walls are acceptable for solar,” he said. “In the United States it is only the roof.”

On the roof the heat from the roof increases the temperature and dilutes the ability of a module to output properly, he added.

“In Arizona a module puts out 80 percent of capacity and in Vancouver it’s at 105 percent to 110,” Ingham said. And in winter when you think it is not going to produce, you are wrong. The solar module in winter produces 120 percent of capacity -- the opposite to what you would think.”

Even the rain and in BC contributes to solar energy generation through added reflection Ingham said.
Click to expand...

Excellent info. Thanks for posting, sir!
 
Epoxy7 said:
Guys, the land they are flooding is on a flood plain. I've seen it. It's not being used to grow food, it seems to be pasture hay of some sort for the most part. Animals do go down there and still will even after it's flooded. They will just be a bit further away. Land isn't like in many other places. You see farms that are on 1/4 sections etc. The most common crop I see grown there is canola flower along with gas pumps. There are gas pumps etc all over that area. Add in the trucks going along the Alaska highway venting condensate fumes. Plus the high cancer rates of people in those areas. It's not the nature wonderland many on here are portraying. It's right smack in the middle of oil/gas country. Think BC's Fort Mac. There is some beauty to the area but.... It's already being used for energy and frankly this isn't a bad place for it to be. You have the smelly gas factory and pulp area of Taylor, you have Dawson creek, Fort St. John right in there heavily involved in oil/gas. You have Hudson's hope with it's dam. If you're going to put it anywhere, that's not too disruptive to the rest of BC. Plus with the oil/gas right now not doing so well, it will help keep things going up there.

I should also add that those thinking the animals will leave are misguided. Hudson's hope has a dam. Try driving along Highway 29 without hitting multiple deer. It was a real skill not to wipe out your vehicles with deer along that area. That is with a dam.

I went on a quad trip in Hudson's hope back in 2008. Good time. The sand for the short time when the water was down was awesome for it. This one was over on some dunes near the reservoir.
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I must disagree. The area that will be impacted by the Site C dam and associated infrastructure is relatively untouched by the oil & gas developments. Important and valuable wildlife habitat - and the animals that use it - will be lost. Regarding Highway 29... that's below the existing dams. Check the shoreline around the current reservoirs and tell me how much game you see. Won't be much, and is definitely much less that was in the area pre-dams. Not to mention, you won't be ABLE to drive the current Hwy 29 in a few years since parts will be underwater! Wetland habitat is not created by these reservoirs. Due to fluctuations in water level, aquatic vegetation has a difficult time establishing. Again... have a look around any of BCs large reservoirs and let me know what you see in terms of wildlife. Not much compared to a natural system. The dam & reservoir may be good for some stocked/artificial fisheries, but wildlife habitat quality in general will decline. Don't kid yourself that it will be any different. I wait with extreme skepticism to see what kind of wildlife compensation program will be rolled out. A few years ago, BC Hydro closed the various compensation programs (Peace/Williston among them) and sacked all the biologists. Their new model for spending the gauranteed funding (interest from a trust fund) is pathetic and I just don't think the work is being done. Will BC Hydro be adding to the pot of funding to do some sort of fisheries and wildlife compensation in the Site C area? Or will they just stretch the existing funding to cover the larger area?

Regarding other sources of energy.. The BC Gov't likes to say that the province is a net power importer. Perhaps, but by choice. Import when cost is low (as described in above examples with Alberta coal) and export when price is high. Good business model. The wind turbines do hack up a lot of birds & bats. These effects can be managed/mitigated, but I've seen NO evidence that the operators are willing do anything of the sort. I remain in support of a gas-fired plant as an alternative. The gas is here, underground. No need to build more pipelines and LNG plants on the coast - just pipe it into a local plant. The Gov't touts the green energy angle for Site C, but desperately want to sell our gas to others. Last I checked, there was one atmosphere around this planet and I expect BC would use better carbon scrubbing techniques in a gas plant than whomever we plan to sell the stuff to. Not to mention the energy required to get it to its new home.

And lastly, it's always 'jobs, jobs, jobs'. Like others have said, how many workers will be from BC? Or even Canada? Everybody around here is busy already. Sure there will be some that could benefit, but I'd expect a lot of Temporary Foreign Workers coming to town.

Again, I hope the natives can put a halt to it. Since the gov't couldn't trust the BC Utilities Commission to rubber stamp the agenda, FN challenges seem like the only escape.

p.s. the awesome sand flats for quadding on the Williston Reservoir are an extreme nuisance to the locals... giant dust storms blow up when pond levels are low
 
A new dam seems a win-win-win for everyone.
A win for environment activists, as it has no carbon footprint;
A win for hunters, as there are more wetlands;
A win for government employees, as they can get overpaid again and again by the provincial government which will have more revenue;
A win for job-seekers, as such a huge project will keep thousands of workers busy;
A win for every household, as their hydro bills will be lower.

However, I do believe the government made a strategic mistake. They should have first proposed to build a dozen coal plants. Then the environment activists or other pretenders would advise the government to build a hydroelectric dam at peace river area instead.
 
A win for every household, as their hydro bills will be lower.
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Lol.
How do you think we will pay the $10 billion tab?
Get ready for crazy increases.
Jobs will go to foreigners due to "shortage of skilled workers"
 
45ACPKING said:
There goes another wintering ground for elk moose and mule deer.
Site C is not needed period
The hydro power it will produce puts profit ahead of environment on a massive scale. Say goodbye to those animals and the decent hunting the area provided despite all the oil and gas development.
What a sad sad joke "beautiful BC" is turning into.
Click to expand...

You see the glass half empty, others see it half full.

Just thinking of the fishing!
 
I spent some time in the site c area and was amazed at the high numbers of wintering mule deer, elk and especially moose. I see the value of maintaining wintering ranges for these ungulates as priority over political and corporate greed.
I'm not a tree huggin, granola eatin, enviromentalist... I'm just a BC resident who wants to see benefits to british columbians over corporations and politicians. This province's resources are being pillaged and plundered and all the while our daily cost of living is sky rocketting.
Site C will change that for no one... But politicians and corporations.
 
Lots of pros and cons of the future projects.
One thing I do know of is a trip our family made a bunch of years ago that landed
us in Revelstoke, BC.
We took a tour of the dam project and such.
The thing that I still remember is that in one of the buildings there was a 3D map of BC,
to scale and elevation.
It showed the lakes, dams and the accumulated water behind the dams.
I was awestruck.
To understand the engineering and development of our water resources and the decisions
to dam certain areas and not others, well this well layed out table top high map showed.
I wish I was old enough to remember the virginity of our sacred province like some here
have experienced.
All said, the easiest could very well have been the Mighty Fraser.
Count yer blessings folks, you live in our fine province...........fer whut it's werth......... Merry Christmas.............
 
That is pretty country. Worked there in the early 80's. The only good things about dams is they can be managed to make a nice fishery. My wife's grandfather was the CO out of Burns Lake in the 30's through the 60's. Watched his favourite piece of the world go under water. Now a destination fishery but also an incredible waste as they flooded the virgin high end saw log pine forests that could have suppled a mill for decades. Dams will reduce the wildlife carrying capacity of the local country as riparian zones disappear and a fairly sterile shoreline is the the new reality. There will be economic benefits to our local economy but short term, boom and bust mentality in my books. A clean form of energy as far as carbon foot print goes, a plus. Solar energy is being ignored for obvious reasons, once in place no further payments required. Too bad, a solar hot water heater on your roof could cut your power bill by an appreciable percentage and mates well with hydro. We do need more power and it has to come from somewhere. Better this system than the Stikine.
 
MD said:
I wrote an article in Trade Talk magazine a few years ago.

What I found out in the course of one interview amazed me:

George Ingham, president of United Power Limited says that B.C. is in the dark ages when it comes to solar power generation when the province is ideally located to generate power.

There are a lot of popular misconceptions to battle, he says, primarily the one that B.C.’s climate and weather and hours of sunlight are not conducive for solar power generation.

Solar modules can work at maximum efficiency in B.C., better than in Arizona or California, he said.

B.C. has the ideal temperature for solar,” Ingham explained. “For every degree over 72 degrees (22.2 Celsius) the module loses one-half of one percent per degree. “

The average temperature in B.C. is 62 degree Fahrenheit (16.6 Celsius), Ingham said, pointing out that all modules operating in B.C. operate at higher than their rated capacity.

Another point Ingham emphasizes is that in British Columbia, receives its sunlight at a 45 degree angle from the sun.

“At 45 degrees both the roof and walls are acceptable for solar,” he said. “In the United States it is only the roof.”

On the roof the heat from the roof increases the temperature and dilutes the ability of a module to output properly, he added.

“In Arizona a module puts out 80 percent of capacity and in Vancouver it’s at 105 percent to 110,” Ingham said. And in winter when you think it is not going to produce, you are wrong. The solar module in winter produces 120 percent of capacity -- the opposite to what you would think.”

Even the rain and in BC contributes to solar energy generation through added reflection Ingham said.
Click to expand...

The problem with solar is that when energy needs are highest, solar is at its lowest.
 
the spank said:
I know very little about B.C's geography. Is this one of the areas in your book Bruce? BTW, thanks. Am really enjoying the read. :)
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It was the original dam on the Peace River at Hudson's Hope that ruined the fabulous country I talk about in the book.
Heart of the flooded area was Finlay Forks, where the Finlay River from the north joined the Parsnip River from the south, creating the start of the Peace River, which then flowed east, straight through the Rocky Mountains. The original dam was at a tremendous canyon on the river.
From Finlay Forks the flood went about 75 miles north on the Finlay, taking out the historic trading post of Fort Graham on the way. Fort Ware was about fifty miles north of the flooded area and is still there. The flood went about 80 miles south on the Parsnip River from Finlay Forks.
Finlay Forks had a Hudson's Bay Co. trading post as early as 1820 while the trading post flooded, an independent trading post, had been owned by the same family since 1926. The operators of this post grew tremendous gardens and their horses could winter out, as the area had a low snow fall.
The trappers and prospectors were well scattered through the entire area since about 1850, with the fur buyers coming about another thirty years earlier, as the Natives had been in the area since basically forever.
Prior to about 1930, the only way in or out of this great land in the summer was first by canoes, then by river boats, as Johnson outboard motors came on the scene. Winter access was either by dog team or snowshoes.
About 1930 the bush airlines of the day contracted the government for a mail run up the trench to Fort Ware, originally called White Water, once a month, nine times a year, with a month off for spring breakup and two months for fall freeze up. This arrangement was in effect right up to the time of flooding. During those three months of every year there was no possible way anyone could get in or out of the country! Sometime after WW2 helicopters could get in, but there was one little trouble if someone needed medical help, say. Most of the time there was absolutely no communication! After WW1 the federal government established radio stations, with a radio operator, at the trading posts, but these were removed after a few years.
Commercial river boat operators hauled in most of the freight, right up until it was flooded, using 22 HP Johnson motors after WW2, then more modern looking 25 HP Johnson's right to the end. And each river boat so powered could haul six tons of freight!
I would have liked to have had a map in the book, but the area was just to large to get reduced to a book page size map. I still have the old aviation maps of most of BC, including all the area we are talking about now. Thus, the pre flooded area can all be seen with detail, on eight miles to the inch maps. I may try and post a picture of a map showing the pre flooded area we are talking about. One obstacle to this is that is that the old Finlay Forks was right on the edge, two ways, of the maps. But I will see if I can do it.
Bruce
 
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