Green leader crashes Hydro conference
Green party wants Site C dam proposal reviewed by B.C. Utilities Commission
The largest, most expensive project in B.C. history continued to degenerate into a political mess Wednesday after B.C.’s Green party leader crashed a media briefing on the proposed $8.8-billion Site C dam and publicly rebuked top B.C. Hydro officials for misleading numbers.
Green Leader Andrew Weaver said he was shocked and troubled by Hydro’s arguments on the Site C dam after sitting, uninvited, through an hour-long media briefing by CEO Jessica McDonald and other top staff in Victoria.
“It’s the single biggest project investment in public infrastructure in B.C.’s history, and there’s been no independent analysis of the numbers being used. It’s been turned into a political football in the dying death throes of a government,” Weaver told reporters after the briefing. “That is, frankly, irresponsible.”
The future of the Site C project remains very much up in the air after the May 9 election.
Hydro and the current Liberal government have argued the new dam, southwest of Fort St. John, is needed to provide power to meet B.C.’s growing demand by 2024. Hydro has already spent $1.75 billion, with another $4 billion committed in contracts. Hydro reports construction spending is running on an average of around $60 million a month.
The NDP has promised to send Site C to an independent review by the B.C. Utilities Commission, saying it’s costly, mismanaged and potentially unnecessary. The NDP is set to form the next government after striking a deal with the Greens that gives New Democrats the votes necessary to topple Premier Christy Clark’s Liberal government on a non-confidence vote in the legislature later this month.
NDP Leader John Horgan has called on Hydro to stop moving any homes and not enter into contracts that don’t contain penalty-free escape clauses until the next government is decided.
“We are in a difficult position,” Horgan said Wednesday. “The B.C. Liberals went forward with a $9-billion capital project without any third-party oversight, so here we are today, 2017, with a couple of years behind us and many dollars spent.
“We want to make sure before we go any further we’re ensuring this is the best possible project. People have to pay for it.”
Amid the political uncertainty, Hydro officials have argued Site C is facing a deadline of June 30 to evict Peace region landowners Ken and Arleen Boon and begin moving two homes. That will allow crews to proceed with realigning a nearby highway and building a new bridge in the Cache CreekBear Flat area.
If the deadline to move the two homes isn’t met, McDonald said Wednesday that Hydro would incur about $630 million in additional costs because the highway and bridge delays would then throw off the construction schedule by a year and delay a planned 2019 diversion of the Peace River.
“It’s a two-year undertaking to get the bridge and highway re-aligned and that takes you to September 2019, which is when the river needs to be diverted,” McDonald said.
“That’s why there’s this domino effect of the houses either being moved or not being moved, now according to the schedule getting linked to river diversion, which is a hard milestone in the project schedule.”
Hydro officials said the river diversion in 2019 is tied to a specific low-water mark expected that September, and it would have to wait until the following September if the window is missed. Hydro provided a detailed breakdown of the $630-million estimated delay figure, which includes ongoing project costs, site maintenance, delays on civil works, storage of turbines and generators, fixed costs for worker accommodation, $105 million in inflation and $200 million in interest.
McDonald refused to comment on what it would cost to cancel the project entirely, though she said existing contracts come with obligations to pay contractors’ costs for work done. Nor would she say when Site C reaches the point of no return for cancellation. She bristled when asked why Hydro, for all its detailed planning, failed to consider that the results of the fixed-date May 9 provincial election would impact the project’s future.
Hydro’s detailed answers failed to convince Weaver.
“There’s all sorts of things that don’t add up,” he said. “Moving two houses is going to cost $600 million? … It just doesn’t sound right.”
Weaver chastised Hydro for briefing the media before responding to his letter to Clark, released Tuesday, in which he asked for detailed information on contracts and assumptions used by Hydro on the project.
“I asked for the information and didn’t get it. You didn’t ask for the information and got it,” he told reporters. “That, to me, is exactly what’s wrong with this government, is that it’s not about information and evidence, it’s about political spin and calculation.”
Clark has asked both Weaver and Horgan to tell her by June 10 if they want the Site C work delayed a year, and to incur the penalty.
Weaver said it’s clear Hydro has enough detailed information to submit to the B.C. Utilities Commission for the NDP’s promised independent review, which the Greens now support.
Mike Bernier, Liberal MLA for Peace River South, shot back at Weaver and Horgan, saying they need to take a clear position on Site C and stop being indecisive about the project. He said he represents a region with more than 2,200 jobs on the line, and argued that even if the government changes, the project should go ahead to provide power to future generations.
It’s been turned into a political football in the dying death throes of a government … That is, frankly, irresponsible.