At a construction cost of $16 billion, the Site C hydroelectric dam and reservoir on the Peace River in northeastern British Columbia is the most expensive public infrastructure project in the province’s history.
Last month, B.C. Hydro started filling the dam’s 83-kilometre long reservoir. The dam is expected to start producing power by December and be fully operational by the fall of 2025.
At 1,100 megawatts, Site C will generate enough electricity to power 450,000 homes, increasing available power on B.C.’s grid by about eight per cent.
But as the dam gets closer to going into operation, worries persist — in Alberta and beyond — that it could lower water levels in the Peace and other rivers downstream.
“For centuries, our people have lived along the river. It fed us, it’s our transportation. Everything that we ever needed was there,” said Francois Paulette, a former chief of Smith’s Landing First Nation near the Alberta-Northwest Territories boundary.
“Now white man comes along and they want to kill the river.”
The Peace-Athabasca Delta is one of the world’s largest inland freshwater deltas. (Dave Bajer/CBC)
The Peace River flows from B.C. into Alberta, where it joins the Athabasca River in the Peace-Athabasca Delta — one of the world’s largest inland freshwater deltas — to form the Slave River.
The Slave empties into Great Slave Lake, and from there the Mackenzie River, the longest waterway in Canada, flows to the Arctic Ocean.
The Site C dam is the third hydroelectric facility to be built on the Peace River in B.C. More than 100 kilometres upstream, the W.A.C. Bennett Dam was built in 1968, and the Peace Canyon Dam in 1980.
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How a dam changes a river
When a river is dammed, its flow is disrupted as water is stored and released at different times, said Adam Norris, watershed co-ordinator for the Mighty Peace Watershed Alliance, a non-profit group.
Big flows in the spring, after winter’s melt, can be held back so that water can be released in the winter when electricity demand is higher, he said.
Dams can also raise water temperatures, which can result in less ice coverage downstream, said Norris, which could impact ice bridges.
For some communities in northern Alberta, using an ice bridge — a naturally frozen structure over a lake or river — is the only means of access by land during the winter months.
There are two ice bridges over the Peace River in Alberta. One is at La Crete. The other is used by the Little Red River Cree Nation for access to the community of Fox Lake.
Downstream concerns
According to flow statistics from the federal government, Peace River water levels in 2010 were half of what they were 50 years earlier.
This year in particular has been dry with water levels down by as much as two metres, said Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation Chief Allan Adam.
Since the Bennett Dam was built in the 1960s, water levels on the Peace have fallen, said Adam. About 90 per cent of the area that was previously accessible by boat in his area is gone.
“There’s no water to trap muskrats,” he said. “It’s pretty much defeated the natural ecosystem.”
While Adam puts some blame on dams for low river water levels, he believes there are other factors, such as climate change.
Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation Chief Allan Adam has noticed that the Peace River is particularly dry this year. The community is located near Fort Chipewyan, Alta. (Jamie Malbeuf/CBC)
Adam worries that Site C could reduce water levels even further.
“It’s just going to get worse if we don’t start fixing these problems,” he said. “B.C. Hydro isn’t listening to our downstream concerns.”
Peace River provides drinking water
B.C. Hydro says Site C should have little impact on water levels in Alberta.
Any noticeable changes, it says, should only be in the area immediately downstream of the dam in B.C., where the river could fluctuate by up to three metres due to increases and decreases in power generation.
In Alberta, water from tributaries that flow into the Peace should lessen the dam’s impact, the Crown corporation says.
Despite those assurances, concerns linger that the dam could be damaging to communities that depend on the Peace River for drinking water.
For example, the Lubicon Lake Band in Little Buffalo, Alta., pipes water roughly 100 kilometres from the Peace River to the community. River water is needed because available groundwater isn’t potable, said Chief Billy Joe Laboucan.
“Where we live, the water level is too shallow,” Laboucan said. “If we did wells, there is too much iron.”
The town of Peace River is one of the largest communities along the waterway in Alberta. (Town of Peace River)
With a population of nearly 7,000, the town of Peace River is the largest community the waterway flows through in Alberta. Mayor Elaine Manzer has few concerns about the new dam.
“If everything goes well, and I expect that it will, it should not produce any noticeable change as we understand,” Manzer said.
Norris, with the Mighty Peace Watershed Alliance, said Site C will likely not change the Peace River significantly as the waterway is already dammed.
Alberta is watching
The Alberta government is working with B.C. Hydro to mitigate potential risks to infrastructure downstream of the dam, a spokesperson for the Minister of Environment and Protected Areas Rebecca Schulz told CBC News.
The spokesperson did not say whether the government had any environmental concerns.
Parks Canada told CBC news that a review in 2014 found Site C should not have a measurable impact on the Peace-Athabasca Delta.
The Peace River near Wood Buffalo National Park in northern Alberta. (Madeleine Cummings/CBC)
However, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, known as UNESCO, is considering adding Wood Buffalo National Park to a list of World Heritage Sites in danger — due in part to impacts from industry, including hydro dams.
In Smith’s Landing First Nation, Francois Paulette, now 75, has witnessed many changes from his house near the riverbank.
“It’s hard to explain this, this feeling, this spiritual damage that humans are putting on the earth,” he said.
“The river has no future,” Paulette said.
“If the river has no future, man has no future. Along with that, man is destroying themselves, whether you know it or not.”