The Sunshine Coast Regional District (SCRD) is putting tough questions to senior government regulators who oversaw the approval of Renewable Power Corporation's Tyson Creek independent power project (IPP) after an environmental problem forced the IPP to temporarily close.
In February, the IPP's operation, which draws down the natural lake level, led to erosion of a Tyson Lake delta, causing sediment-laden water to cloud the lake and posing a potential risk to fish and fish habitat on both sides of the IPP.
During last Thursday's (Sept. 9) planning and development committee meeting, directors grilled, via conference call, Ministry of Environment (MOE) and Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) staff on the approval process for this and other IPPs.
The SCRD requested the conference call to get an update on the turbidity issues, ongoing monitoring and what the two agencies are doing to ensure a similar accident does not happen again.
Al Magnan, DFO's habitat biologist attached to the project, said ongoing monitoring has shown "no measurable impacts to fish or fish habitat from the event" but SCRD directors questioned how and why the event happened and what it says about the regulatory process.
"What scares the hell of out of me is what is going to be next as we blunder through the wilderness, punching penstocks into alpine lakes and trying to figure out how much power we can draw from them," said Gibsons director Barry Janyk.
The committee heard how no one from Renewable Power, their environmental consultants who helped with the application process or members of DFO or MOE anticipated that having a delta in the lake could lead to such a problem, but directors were left skeptical.
"When I was in Grade 12, I knew that deltas were not as stable as land," Elphinstone director Lorne Lewis said.
Peter Schober, Renewable's co-owner and senior engineer, acknowledged that the delta issue was overlooked from the onset, as it was never included in the initial reports by their consultants.
"We are currently holding our consultants accountable for that and there is action being taken for that," Schober said.
Schober said the company must now work to repair the deltas and make sure the problem will not happen again before it is allowed to fully resume operations.
Janyk said he was let down by the agencies' lack of foresight on the problem.
Roberts Creek director Donna Shugar questioned whether there are other IPPs in the province that would have had a similar problem overlooked.
MOE's Tim Bennet said he was not aware of any others with similar conditions but said both agencies would take deltas into account before signing off on any other future projects.
"So we're kind of learning as we go, huh?" Janyk responded sardonically.
As the meeting drew to a close, the committee passed a resolution to write to the MOE and DFO ministers to acknowledge that both agencies have responded appropriately to the Tyson event, but expressing deep dissatisfaction with the regulatory process. The letter will request reforms to the current model for granting approvals and that both ministries' resources be increased to improve oversight.
A full report on the Tyson event is due in the next week.
