BC Hydro plans to expropriate the home of Peace Valley farmers Ken and Arlene Boon before Christmas, following the couple’s refusal to sign over their top class farmland for the Site C dam, DeSmog Canada has learned.
The Boons said that the $8.8 billion dam could still be stopped and they are not budging from their third-generation family home, farmland, garden, greenhouse and workshop to make way for a Site C highway relocation until they are forced to leave.
“We’re at peace with the idea of going to expropriation,” Ken Boon said in an interview.
“Arlene and I agreed (Read more…) didn’t want to sign anything over. It just goes against every bone in our bodies. They’ll have to take it from us.”
BC Hydro will seize the Boon’s farmhouse and 130 hectares of their land on or around December 16, according to the couple. They say they will be permitted to stay in their farmhouse as BC Hydro’s tenants until May 31, three weeks after the B.C. provincial election, and to farm their riverside fields for three more years even though BC Hydro will own the land.
“I don’t think they wanted to kick us out during the election campaign,” said Boon.