The Globe and Mail is Canada’s national newspaper with the second largest broadsheet circulation in the country. It has enormous influence on Canada’s political and business elite.
VICTORIA and Vancouver — The B.C. government has approved the construction of the Site C dam on the Peace River at an estimated cost of almost $8.8-billion, making it the largest public infrastructure project in the province’s history.
But the government will delay the project until next summer and has adjusted the price to be $900-million higher than what BC Hydro had proposed. The project faces a series of lawsuits, and on Tuesday, environmentalists, First Nations and the NDP renewed their opposition to the dam.
Premier Christy Clark, at a news conference in Victoria, said the revised budget reflects “the true cost” of building the dam, but she believes it remains the cheapest option to meet British Columbia’s growing demand for electricity in the future.
“I believe the people of our province will continue to prosper,” she said. “We need to ensure there is power – clean, reliable, sustainable power.”
Site C will be built downstream of the W.A.C. Bennett and Peace Canyon dams in northeastern B.C., and will be the first major hydroelectric dam to be built in the province since completion of the Revelstoke dam in 1984.
“It is big, it is expensive, but it will meet 8 per cent of the total energy needs of the province,” B.C. Energy Minister Bill Bennett said. “It is next to impossible for any other option to compete with it.”
He said the cost has climbed from BC Hydro’s $7.9-billion budget because the cabinet wanted a larger contingency fund, and costly construction delays will push the in-service date into 2025.
With 1,100 megawatts of capacity, the Site C dam would provide enough energy to power the equivalent of about 450,000 homes a year. But it will flood 55 square kilometres of river valley and will have negative impacts on wildlife and First Nations’ communities.
For the rest of this article, click here: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/bc-cabinet-approves-site-c-hydroelectric-dam/article22108474/