‘Integrity of the conservancies’ is paramount to Great Bear Rainforest agreement, Greenpeace says

Larry Pynn, Vancouver Sun–Wednesday, December 19, 2007–It was all backslaps, smiles and handshakes when politicians, environmentalists, aboriginals and industry leaders gathered at a news conference in Vancouver in February 2006 to trumpet a landmark agreement for an area of the B.C. coast known as the Great Bear Rainforest.

They talked of ending a decade of confrontation in the coastal forests, of finding a way to support the economies of aboriginal people, and especially of creating a new form of land protection — conservancies — that would ensure protection of the area’s rich biological diversity.

That included everything from old-growth forests and salmon streams to the habitat of species such as grizzlies, white spirit bears and unique populations of coastal wolves.

Not one person that day spoke of massive industrial-scale power projects that would alter the coastal wilderness landscape with hundreds of wind turbines and hundreds of kilometres of transmission lines.

But less than two years after the announcement of the Great Bear Rainforest agreement, research by The Vancouver Sun shows those are precisely the sorts of developments being entertained for the much-touted conservancies.

B.C.’s Environmental Assessment Office is in the process of reviewing five industrial projects — one wind turbine and four run-of-the-river hydro developments — that in total would overlap three existing conservancy areas and four others soon to be designated.

- North Coast Wind Energy Corp. (a subsidiary of Katabatic Power Corp.), 90 km south of Prince Rupert, 234 wind turbines generating 700 megawatts of energy (with an anticipated expansion to 3,000 megawatts in the coming years), overlapping the Banks Nii Luutiksm Conservancy, established in 2006, and the K’wall and Alty conservancies, established in 2007.

- Primex Investments Ltd., 68-megawatt hydro, Nascall River, 55 km west of Bella Coola, overlapping the proposed Cascade-Sutslem Conservancy.

- Kleana Power Corp. Ltd., 280-megawatt hydro, Klinaklini River, 150 km north of Campbell River, overlapping the proposed Upper Klinaklini Conservancy.

- Kitamaat Renewable Energy Corp. (a partnership of the Haisla First Nation and Kleana Power principal Alexander Eunall), 15 and 30 megawatts, Crab and Europa creeks, 50 and 70 km south of Kitimat, overlapping the proposed Europa Conservancy.

- Plutonic Power Corp., Europa Creek, 83 megawatts, 80 km southeast of Kitimat, overlapping the proposed Europa Conservancy.

A fifth development by the City of Prince Rupert, still in the conceptual stage, would involve a power project on the Shawatlan River between Woodworth Lake and Shawatlan Lake, overlapping the proposed Tuck-Woodworth Conservancy.

Do these projects fit the conservancy vision as publicly stated in February 2006?

Quite the opposite, in fact.

The province formally established 24 conservancies in July 2006 and another 41 in May 2007 spanning more than 706,000 hectares in total on the central and north coast. The province is still working on the final touches of another 48 conservancies totalling more than 590,000 hectares, due for completion in 2008.

When the province announced the Great Bear Rainforest land-use agreement, it promised that commercial logging, mining and hydro-electric power generation would be banned in the conservancies aside from “low impact … local run-of-river projects” designed to provide power for nearby communities not on the power grid.

Wind turbine projects were not even mentioned in the ensuing legislation creating the conservancies.

So how have things changed?

Ken Morrison, manager of the planning and land administration section in the B.C. Ministry of Environment, said Banks Island was identified as a potential wind farm site with natives prior to 2006.

As for the commercial hydro projects, the province is investigating whether they might be permitted through changes to the boundaries of the proposed conservancies.

He emphasized that any such projects must first be okayed through the environmental assessment process and then must meet the criteria of the conservancy legislation — and there are no guarantees of success.

Under the 2006 Park (Conservancy Enabling) Amendment Act, conservancies are set aside to: protect biological diversity and natural environments; protect social, ceremonial and cultural uses of first nations; to protect recreational values, and to ensure sustainable use of natural resources.

Joe Foy of the Western Canada Wilderness Committee said he is not reassured by the province’s Environmental Assessment Office, arguing it has never turned down a project and cannot be relied upon to do so now.

(Of 159 projects reviewed by the environmental assessment process to date, none have been rejected. However, proponents have voluntarily withdrawn about 15 per cent of the total, due to the challenges of providing more information or the need for project redesign to meet environmental requirements.)

Foy squarely blamed Premier Gordon Campbell for creating a “gold-rush” mentality among independent power producers in B.C. and for now allowing an end-run around the conservancy process.

Foy urged the province to immediately put an end to such development applications.

“This is a bit of a sideswipe by Premier Campbell, allowing the whole freakin’ province to get staked by these guys. This is a terrible policy — some say the worst to ever come by British Columbia.”

Campbell did not agree to The Sun’s request for an interview.

The developments have put certain environmental groups — Greenpeace, Sierra Club, Forest Ethics — that helped negotiate the agreement and stood beside Campbell in support of them in 2006 in a tricky position.

“We’re monitoring the situation, letting officials know when we feel that the proposals are inconsistent with the conservancy legislation — that biodiversity be maintained,” Greenpeace forest campaigner Amanda Carr said.

“The integrity of the conservancies is paramount to the Great Bear Rainforest agreement. Obviously, a massive wind farm or power lines . . . are not my vision of what a conservancy is.”

And while Carr supports Campbell encouraging green power and “would be so proud to have the largest wind farm in the world” located in B.C., she feels there are clearly “better places to do it than in the middle of one of the protected areas of the Great Bear Rainforest.”

Carr said she remains hopeful the 2006 agreement, which also provides for no logging in 33 per cent of the region, sustainable logging elsewhere, and assistance to create a conservation-based coastal economy for first nations, can still be held up as an ecological model.

“Time will tell,” she added. “The coast is a complex place.”

Clifford White, chief of the Gitxaala First Nation, said that nearby Banks Island was touted as a wind farm site prior to the B.C. government announcement in 2006 on the Great Bear Rainforest, and that his band is working in cooperation with North Coast Wind Energy-Katabatic on the proposal.

But he noted that the 500 residents of his community are not entirely sold on the concept of hundreds of wind turbines. “We’re concerned with economic development, but more concerned about the environmental impacts,” he said. “There is a lot of work to be done.”

Katabatic’s CEO, San Francisco-based Jonathan Raymond, argued that while wind farms represent a “large-scale industrial use,” they generally “don’t have a major footprint” compared with other forms of natural resource extraction.

One of the biggest environmental concerns about wind farms in North America is the potential for the blades to kill birds and bats. Transmission lines associated with wind and hydro projects also pose a lethal threat to birds.

The proposed Banks Island wind farm development would include about 100 km of transmission line. Raymond said he “doesn’t expect a significant impact to bird life,” but noted the environmental assessment process has only begun.

“Any energy project will have an impact,” he said. “It’s up to us to go through the process and demonstrate we’re mitigating the impact as much as possible.”

Communications officer Elisha Moreno — who recently switched employers, to Plutonic Power from BC Hydro — said the planned Europa Creek project would create almost 50 km of transmission line outside the conservancy.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services estimates power lines kill up to 174 million birds annually in America.

Kleana Power president Alexander Eunall confirmed his project includes a “head pond” that would extend one to two kilometres into the Upper Klinaklini Conservancy.

The pond would not be used to store water for hydro power per se, but to ensure that the water intake for the tunnels to the powerhouse remain under water and not exposed to the air. Eunall said he believes the head pond would be consistent with the conservancy because it would not create a water level higher than the river’s normal high-water mark.

Lee Rennison, vice-president of Primex Investments Ltd., said up to one-quarter of the Nascall River project would be used to meet the power needs of the communities of Bella Coola and Anahim Lake, in part replacing dirty diesel generators, while the rest would be sold through the BC Hydro power grid.

Rennison said the run-of-the-river project and less than 10 per cent of the 126 km of transmission lines associated with the development would pass through the proposed Cascade-Sutslem Conservancy.

lpynn@png.canwest.com

© The Vancouver Sun 2007