Why B.C. needs a public inquiry on the Site C dam

‘‘There is not enough science education among the public

For years, British Columbians have been left in the dark about the most expensive public project in our history.

All of that came to an end last week when the B.C. Utilities Commission issued its final report on the Site C dam. The results are, well, damning. “This report indicates had the Liberals put this to the commission four years ago, Site C would not be built,” said Mark Jaccard, a professor at Simon Fraser University’s School of Resource and Environmental Management.

Normally, the construction of new electricity-generating facilities can’t begin without B.C.’s independent regulator issuing something called a “certificate of public convenience and necessity.”

But the Site C dam never had such a certificate because it was exempted from review under the previous B.C. Liberal government.

That means construction on the dam began without any independent, in-depth examination of the costs of the project or the demand for the project. Seriously.

The government skipped the review and instead plowed ahead with a megaproject without certainty on whether it was a) needed or b) the most cost-effective source of electricity.

Only now do we have that analysis, and it’s not pretty. That has led to calls for a public inquiry into how (and, perhaps more importantly, why) B.C. Hydro and the B.C. Liberals made that decision.

“I would like to see a full inquiry to investigate how B.C. Hydro executives and the previous government essentially conspired to manufacture the case for Site C,” said Marc Lee, a senior economist with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.

“To have our electricity utility lying to us, making up numbers and doing all sorts of spurious comparisons between its preferred option and the alternative is shameful.”

Here’s just one example. In August, B.C. Hydro submitted to the BCUC that it had screened out solar energy on the basis of a cost estimate of $97 per megawatt hour in 2025. In response to a followup question from the commission, B.C. Hydro admitted the cost of solar is now only half that at $48/MWh.

While B.C. Hydro has argued for years that alternatives weren’t viable, the panel found that actually — even factoring in a $1.8-billion cost to terminate Site C and remediate the site — an alternative portfolio would still likely come in at a similar cost to Site C.

Can you imagine what would have happened if we had reviewed the options before beginning construction?

Given that the unit energy cost of renewables is significantly cheaper than Site C ($32/MWh compared with $44/MWh in the panel’s assessment), it’s pretty clear we wouldn’t be building a mega-dam if we’d done the analysis.

Since the panel couldn’t rely on B.C. Hydro’s assessment of alternatives, it came up with its own alternative portfolio. What did that look like?

Under the most likely demand scenario, B.C. won’t need any new electricity generation until 2039, when we’ll need to start building 444 megawatts of wind (Site C is a 1,100-megawatt project). The rest of demand growth can be met through increased efficiency and conservation.

So for all of the propaganda about the need for Site C, essentially the panel found that instead of flooding 100 kilometres of river valley, infringing on treaty rights and pushing farmers out of their homes, we could chill for 22 years and then build a bit of wind power. Seriously.

The panel found B.C. Hydro’s mid-load forecast for electricity demand in B.C. “excessively optimistic” and noted there are risks that could result in demand being less than even B.C. Hydro’s lowest demand scenario.

The icing on the cake? The panel was “not persuaded that the Site C project will remain on schedule” and found “the project is not within the proposed budget of $8.335 billion.”

Completion costs might actually be in excess of $10 billion and could be up to 50 per cent more than budgeted.

When my online news organization, DeSmog Canada, first reported Site C was behind schedule and over budget more than a year ago, B.C. Hydro attacked us via a press release. A freedom-ofinformation request later revealed they co-ordinated with the premier’s office to discredit our reporting.

It turns out B.C. Hydro and the premier would have been better off spending some time assessing whether they were making the right choice, rather than smearing journalists.

British Columbians deserve to know why those in power pushed ahead with an unnecessary and fiscally irresponsible project. A public inquiry is the only way we’ll ever get those answers.