Help us Stop Site C.
Since the Salt Spring Community Energy Group formed in 2013, one project has cast a large and expensive shadow on our efforts towards local community power.
Now, thanks to the NDP requiring the British Columbia Utilities Commission's (BCUC) public review of the Site C project we now know in gory detail how financially irresponsible this mega project really is. In it's rush for electoral glory, the province signed a 70 year mortgage in you and your grandkids’ names to build a dam with a laundry list of risks. They started a project with insufficient funds to manage escalating costs and collapsing riverbank, and the BCUC determined that it will be off schedule, billions over budget, and was based on inflated demand. BCUC also identified that alternative renewable energies had not been given a fair shake and could be developed at equal or cheaper costs.
It is absolutely critical for the NDP to hear your voice now to stop Site C. It matters for the local economies and jobs; it matters for the environment; it matters for greenhouse gas emissions and it matters for First Nations’ rights and livelihoods. The dam stands in the way of the transformation to a safer, more resilient and distributed energy future.
NDP now have to make sense of this boondoggle, and the MLA's and Ministers need to hear your support for cancelling the project and move ahead with the 21st century technologies that enable local energy projects and can leverage a rapid and comprehensive decarbonization of our economy.
Tell your MLA:
- They did a good thing to have a BCUC inquiry expose the problems with the Site C project.
- Cancel Site C and get on with the NDP PowerBC energy policy to create environmentally responsible local jobs.
- You won't pay for Site C. Instead you will be investing in local community energy projects that won’t flood prime agriculture land for a less than clean form of electricity.
Letters should be sent to your local NDP MLA and cc’d to John Horgan (Premier), Michelle Mungall (Energy), George Heyman (Climate Change) as well as Andrew Weaver (Green Party).
If you don’t have an NDP MLA, just send a letter, email, or make a phonecall to:
Further points for your email, letter, or phonecall:
- There are 5 to 14 times more long term stable jobs per MWh (Megawatt hour) generated from renewable sources such as wind, solar or geothermal.
- Long-term commitment of large financial resources with questionable returns hollows out emerging industries and imposes higher electricity prices on consumers and at substantial social and economic costs.
- Site C has been rejected twice already, let the Peace River be.
- The project will to be a large emitter of greenhouse gases like methane and CO2 during construction, valley flooding, and operation. It will continue releasing methane amounting to about 300 kg of CO2e per MWh, seriously counteracting the Province’s decarbonization efforts.
- Solar and wind are insignificant emitters of greenhouse gases (5-40 kg CO2e per MWh), essential to decarbonization of electricity and transportation.
- Distributed generation and increased use of microgrids, especially for solar and wind, can contribute to energy security while minimizing transmission losses.
- Should demand truly shoot up rapidly (which is highly unlikely), there is plenty of capacity available to BC through the Columbia River Treaty; in fact, about the same as through Site C.
- Distributed generation provides local control and funds can be invested locally.
- Alternatives are highly competitive and prices are decreasing rapidly as the new technologies evolve and mature.
- Local renewables are essential tools to meet the decarbonization goals of the Paris Agreement.
Please share this with friends and family in other parts of BC, especially those with NDP MLAs. Encourage them to write their local MLAs. The NDP is under significant political pressure to go ahead with Site C despite the BCUC recommendations. It's imperative that the NDP understand the wide-spread political consequences that threaten their power if they ignore the BCUC findings.
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