Proposed BC dam receives complaints from Alberta Aboriginals

A handful of northern Alberta First Nations have registered their concerns with the B.C. government about B.C. Hydro’s plans to build another dam on the Peace River. “It’s a very, very narrow approach to environmental assessment and we have so much concern,” said Melody Lepine, spokeswoman for the Mikisew Cree. B.C. Hydro is currently accepting public comments on the environmental assessment of its proposed Site C Dam, which would be located south of Fort St. John. The project would generate 1,100 megawatts of electricity and require a dam a kilometre long and 60 metres high, creating an 83-kilometre reservoir about three times the current width of the river. Site C would be B.C. Hydro’s third dam on the river with the giant Bennett Dam further upstream. The First Nations are concerned that the provincially-owned company is refusing to look at the cumulative effects of those dams. The Athabasca Chipewyan, the Little Red River Cree, the Fort Chipewyan Métis, the Deninu K’e, the Mikisew Cree and the Dene Tha have all filed objections to B.C. Hydro’s Site C environmental assessment. They say the assessment’s study area stops at Peace Point, upstream of the delta, and that the research won’t consider how the ongoing impacts of the Bennett Dam will add to those of Site C. The Alberta government has also expressed concern about the proposed Site C Dam.