Editor:
On April 10, an enormous white elephant went to Vancouver to remind British Columbians that BC Hydro’s Site C dam project for northeast B.C.’s Peace River is a looming economic disaster – and can be stopped.
White elephants are traditional symbols of useless gifts that cost needless expense and are burdensome to maintain.
Alliance 4 Democracy has done the research. We strongly believe B.C. needs a sober second look at the question of Site C dam. We have studied research that came to light after the joint review panel about the need, costs and alternatives for the dam. We learned that the economics just don’t work for B.C. The risks to our future prosperity are unacceptable: from a dam that will need to sell power below the cost of production and create a massive Hydro-planned debt burden for at least 70 years.
Why Site C dam? We are deeply concerned that the facts have not been independently reviewed by the public body responsible for that task, the BC Utilities Commission. The B.C. government refused to allow this independent verification process in the public interest to occur. So we risk making a huge mistake with massive economic, indigenous, social and environmental costs without having answered one simple question: Do we really need this dam? Seventy per cent of people in B.C. want this project reviewed before it continues. Seventy per cent of people want the simple question, “Do we really need Site C dam?” to be answered before the so-called point of no return.
The Big White Elephant is coming to warn people about the costs of Site C dam to their families and future so they can vote accordingly. May 9 is an important election for the people of the Peace River Valley. We in the south owe them, at the very least, the verification that we need Site C dam before we destroy their priceless valley and their ways of life. It’s a question of human decency.
D. Lynn Chapman, Roberts Creek, Alliance 4 Democracy
