PALMER: SITE C OFFERS MADE PUBLIC
Big money: Land, $6.5 million up front to ‘accommodate residual impacts’ of Site C on First Nations opposed to it
BC Hydro has laid out the land and cash being offered to a trio of First Nations whose traditional territories would be impacted by construction of the proposed hydroelectric dam at Site C on the Peace River.
The amounts were disclosed by Hydro earlier this month in one of the multiple court cases involving Site C, this one a challenge to the project filed in B.C. Supreme Court by the West Moberly First Nation, the Prophet River First Nation, and the McLeod Lake Indian Band.
Defending the decision to proceed with construction later this year, Hydro’s court filing said the specific offers were intended to “directly accommodate the residual impacts” of the controversial project on the three First Nations.
“The offer to West Moberly includes the potential transfer of 2,500 to 3,000 acres of provincial Crown land, $3.5 million in lump-sum payments, $350,000 per year for 70 years adjusted annually as well as other measures,” the filing said.
“The offer to Prophet River includes a $1,000,000 lumpsum payment, the potential establishment of land protection measures for certain parcels of Crown land, as well as other measures.”
As for McLeod Lake, terms include “the potential transfer of 2,500 acres of provincial Crown land, $2,000,000 in lump-sum payments, $250,000 per year for 70 years adjusted annually, as well as other measures.”
Combined, the three offers would deliver $6.5 million up front and another $42 million over 70 years. The land offer translates into a third of the 6,500 hectares that would be either submerged or occupied by the dam, generating station and reservoir.
The offers are intended to address the findings of the recent federal-provincial joint review panel regarding the impact of the project on First Nations’ hunting, fishing, trapping and other traditional activities.
“The panel found that the project was likely to cause significant adverse effects on particular uses by the members of some First Nations and that those effects cannot be mitigated,” as Hydro itself acknowledged.
“Other measures” cited by Hydro include access for all three First Nations to a further compensation fund totalling $10 million. The Crown corporation would also designate significant tracts of land elsewhere as winter range for deer, moose and other ungulates.
Plus Hydro says it has already provided almost $6 million to native groups in the region to fund research and participation in the environmental review of the project and other consultations, going back more than seven years.
If that sounds like a lot of public funding for three native nations with a combined membership (estimated by Hydro) at just over 1,000 people, it has to be weighed against the economics of Site C as a whole.
The latest all-in cost estimate for the project, interest and contingencies included, is approaching $9 billion. Based on Hydro’s own costing of $83 a megawatt hour for an annual output of 5,100 gigawatt hours of energy, Site C will be producing $400 million worth of electricity a year.
On those expectations, the above-cited quantities of land and cash should probably be regarded as opening offers, falling short of any likely area of settlement with the three First Nations — presuming there is one. For as Hydro also notes in the court filing, all three are part of the Treaty 8 group of First Nations, which have together adopted a stance of “emphatic opposition” to Site C.
“Neither Prophet River nor West Moberly have accepted BC Hydro’s offer or sought to enter negotiations regarding the offer,” the company further conceded. McLeod Lake has entered into negotiations, but so far without results.
In the case of West Moberly, “emphatic opposition” is somewhat less pithy than the actual words of Chief Roland Willson last December when the B.C. Liberals green-lighted Hydro to proceed with Site C.
“Ill-advised,” “incredibly stupid” and “a spit in the face,” he called it, vowing to stop Site C by all legal means available — this action being one among an estimated half-dozen others, several involving First Nations.
Also in court this week was the Peace River Landowners Association, seeking to overturn the environmental approval of the project as fatally flawed. Then there’s the threat of legal action from unionized construction workers, seeking to establish fair wages and working conditions on the site, as per Hydro projects a generation ago.
The Liberals are resisting what they regard as preferential treatment of the unions, saying it might disadvantage non-union bidders including native-owned companies, thereby compromising their promises of jobs and benefits for First Nations in the region. That’s debatable, like many other aspects of Site C.
In the absence of a courtimposed injunction, the Liberals and BC Hydro continue to profess their intentions to proceed with construction of Site C later this year.
The urgency is two-fold they say, with each delay adding tens of millions of dollars to the budget and there being only a narrow window to proceed with construction between spring run-off and winter freeze-up.
Hence the question this week to Energy Minister Bill Bennett — namely, in light of all the action in the courts, is he still confident that construction will get underway later this year?
“I am confident that we’ll have shovels in the ground sometime this summer,” he replied, speaking mostly for himself and not for anyone observing this imbroglio from the sidelines.