Will B.C.'s massive new Site C dam on the Peace River have downstream impacts on Alberta?
At a construction cost of $16 billion, the Site C hy‐ droelectric dam and reser‐ voir on the Peace River in northeastern British Co‐ lumbia is the most expen‐ sive public infrastructure project in the province's history.
Last month, B.C. Hydro started filling the dam's 83kilometre long reservoir. The dam is expected to start pro‐ ducing power by December and be fully operational by the fall of 2025.
At 1,100 megawatts, Site C will generate enough electric‐ ity 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, wor‐ ries 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 transporta‐ tion. Everything that we ever needed was there," said Francois Paulette, a former chief of Smith's Landing First Nation near the AlbertaNorthwest Territories bound‐ ary.
"Now white man comes along and they want to kill the river."
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 in‐ land 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 kilome‐ tres 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 differ‐ ent times, said Adam Norris, watershed co-ordinator for the Mighty Peace Watershed Alliance, a non-profit group.
Big flows in the spring, af‐ ter winter's melt, can be held back so that water can be re‐ leased in the winter when electricity demand is higher, he said.
Dams can also raise water temperatures, which can re‐ sult 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 Alber‐ ta. One is at La Crete. The other is used by the Little Red River Cree Nation for ac‐ cess 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 me‐ tres, said Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation Chief Allan Adam.
Since the Bennett Dam was built in the 1960s, water levels on the Peace have fall‐ en, said Adam. About 90 per cent of the area that was pre‐ viously accessible by boat in his area is gone.
"There's no water to trap muskrats," he said. "It's pret‐ ty 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.
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 down‐ stream of the dam in B.C., where the river could fluctu‐ ate by up to three metres due to increases and de‐ creases in power generation.
In Alberta, water from tributaries that flow into the Peace should lessen the dam's impact, the Crown cor‐ poration says.
Despite those assurances, concerns linger that the dam could be damaging to com‐ munities that depend on the Peace River for drinking wa‐ ter.
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," Labou‐ can said. "If we did wells, there is too much iron."
With a population of near‐ ly 7,000, the town of Peace River is the largest communi‐ ty the waterway flows through in Alberta. Mayor Elaine Manzer has few con‐ cerns about the new dam.
"If everything goes well, and I expect that it will, it should not produce any no‐ ticeable change as we under‐ stand," Manzer said.
Norris, with the Mighty Peace Watershed Alliance, said Site C will likely not change the Peace River sig‐ nificantly as the waterway is already dammed.
Alberta is watching
The Alberta government is working with B.C. Hydro to mitigate potential risks to in‐ frastructure 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 con‐ cerns.
Parks Canada told CBC news that a review in 2014 found Site C should not have a measurable impact on the Peace-Athabasca Delta.
However, the United Na‐ tions Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, known as UNESCO, is consid‐ ering adding Wood Buffalo National Park to a list of World Heritage Sites in dan‐ ger - due in part to impacts from industry, including hy‐ dro 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."