Former BC Hydro CEO Marc Eliesen says BC Hydro’s claim that a one-year delay in Site C dam construction will add $420 million to the project’s $8.8 billion cost is “effectively illusionary” and based on “fundamentally flawed” analysis.
Eliesen made the statement in an affidavit filed February 16 in the B.C. Supreme Court, in response to BC Hydro’s application for an injunction to remove Peace Valley farmers and First Nations members from a camp they have occupied since New Year’s Eve.
The application, to be heard February 22, seeks to prohibit anyone from physically interfering with Site C work or counseling others to do the same. If the application is approved, campers who remain at the site will risk arrest.
The peaceful camp, at the Rocky Mountain Fort site on the Peace River’s south bank, has prevented clearcut logging of the surrounding old-growth forest in preparation for Site C flooding. Court documents filed by BC Hydro say the area around the fort site must be cleared immediately because it is slated for a “potentially acid-generating” waste rock dump. The documents note that a berm will be constructed to prevent waste from entering the Peace River.
In his affidavit, Eliesen, who has also headed Ontario Hydro and the Manitoba Energy Authority, says BC Hydro’s testimony in support of the injunction application “fails to provide the proper and comprehensive historical context of BC Hydro’s determinations regarding this project” and is “without merit.”