by Ray Grigg

Run-of-river power is British Columbia's new gold rush. This time the promise of wealth is not in the gravel beneath the flowing water but in the water itself.

At first glance, the principle for capturing this wealth seems technologically simple and environmentally harmless. Put a turbine in a running creek or river, generate electricity from the device, connect to a power grid and, voilà, clean energy. That's what Joe Foy and Rafe Mair first thought, too. Until they thought again.

Foy is a long-time member of the Western Canada Wilderness Committee (WCWC), a veteran of many environmental campaigns and a key element in raising ecological awareness in the region. Mair is a media personality, a recognized radio talk-show host and television figure who was a Minister of Environment in a former BC Social Credit government. Foy, with a leftist political inclination, and Mair, with a rightist one, were both so shocked by the damaging impact from some of these run-of river projects that they decided to join forces to warn British Columbians in a series of public meetings throughout the province.

To give a sense of the scope of these projects, about 8,200 creeks and rivers in BC have been identified for possible run-of-river installations. Nearly 500 licences have already been signed to allow projects to proceed. The "cumulative impact" of these projects could be "huge", notes Shane Simpson, environment critic for the present New Democratic opposition in Victoria.

Although some of these installations could be small and inconsequential, many will be substantial, with significant environmental impacts. Up to 90 percent of some rivers will be diverted through pipes or tunnels to re-direct the water to turbines. In the most extreme example, most of the Klinaklini River at the head of Knight Inlet could be diverted through an 18 km tunnel 10.5 m in diameter water to the generation station at the estuary. This will be a major disruption to the ecology of the Klinaklini. Like the project on the Ashlu River near Squamish, it is an industrial-scale development.

Compounding the impact of tunnels will be dams built to assure a more even flow of water to the turbines ‹ most rivers have variable seasonal flows that compromise consistent electrical generation. "Power firming" is the euphemism that attempts to hide the impact of the dams, some of which will be up to 20m high. As many as 50 of various heights are planned for just three of the run-of-river sites in Knight, Bute and Toba Inlets. These dams alone will have major environmental impacts.

Then the produced electricity from these remote locations has to get to consumers. To do this, transmission lines have to connect to the power grid. In the case of Knight Inlet, it's a 180 kilometre long swath of forest, 25 to 100 metres wide, to be cleared northward through remote BC landscapes, and another line may come southward across the Johnstone Strait islands to connect to the Vancouver Island grid. At Toba Inlet, it's a 145 km transmission line to the nearest grid. At the Glacier/Howser site in the Kootenays, it's a 91.5 km line.

Needless to say, Foy and the WCWC are concerned. This network of power lines will traverse some of BC's most pristine wilderness, opening it up to logging, mining, hunting and additional run-of-river projects. And because this is being done by private investors, says Foy, it is uncoordinated, leading to a haphazard network of scars that will increase the scenic and ecological damage.

Indeed, the whole run-of-river process has the character of a gold rush frenzy. Not only could it bring monumental disturbance to many of the pristine streams and rivers that give BC its "super-natural" character ‹ when Foy and Mair were asked about the Department of Fisheries and Oceans' federal mandate to protect salmon, they both laughed ‹ it is already bringing disturbing political changes to the province. In 2005, the Squamish Lillooet Regional District voted against the building of power generating facilities on the Ashlu, a world-class white-water kayaking river and a key component in Squamish's wilderness tourism plans. The province overrode that decision with Bill 30, legislation that essentially denies local governments the right to interfere with projects deemed important to provincial interests.

The politics also reverberate into economics. Since these run-of-river projects are the efforts of independent power producers ‹ IPPs as they are called ‹ they function outside the control BC Hydro, the government corporation that has been able to provide the province with the second lowest electricity rates in North America. Because the provincial energy plan requires BC Hydro to purchase high priced power from the IPPs, Foy and Main are concerned that British Columbians will lose their cheap electricity and, perhaps, even BC Hydro itself. Furthermore, when we sell surplus power to the United States, under the "proportionality" clause of NAFTA we must continue providing that relative level of power regardless of our own needs.

To make matters worse, according to Foy and Mair, BC doesn't even need the high priced, corporate, run-of-river power that the provincial government is requiring us to buy. They contend we could meet our own needs by reducing consumption and by claiming our share of electricity from the existing Columbia River Treaty.

Joe Foy and Rafe Mair are both passionate British Columbians, seasoned and informed advocates for the public interest who care about the environment and the well-being of their fellow citizens. In run-of-river projects, they see a gold rush folly that is nothing less than the reckless and costly industrialization of BC's rivers and wilderness. They believe that the whole plan deserves open and public debate. If you agree, talk to your local MLA.