Environmentalist lashes out against plan
Laura Hendrick
[email protected]
A proposed Independent Power Project (IPP) on Fries Creek has moved one step closer to fruition.
On Dec. 26, the Ministry of Environment offered the proponents, Pacific Greengen Power, an investigative permit allowing them to make minor changes to the land such as boring holes in the soil as they look further into the site's viability.
The hydroelectric project would put a diversion-style dam on Fries Creek, south of Brackendale Eagles Provincial Park with the potential to generate 10 megawatts of power.
Although the notice said, "No significant impacts to the environment have been identified by mandated agencies," the statement does not represent a final decision on the project. MOE is yet to approve the project's Environmental Impact Assessment.
The investigative permit should not have been granted, says Squamish Environmental Conservation Society vice-president John Buchanan. He described the project as an "environmental disaster" and said the IPP should be rejected in its entirety.
He said he was alarmed to find the maps used in the project's April 2007 Environmental Impact Assessment did not acknowledge a 50-hectare overlap between the proposed hydroelectric site and the Squamish Estuary Wildlife Management Area.
"How can they say there is no significant impacts on the environment when the overlap and intrusion into the estuary is obvious?" he asked.
Pacific Greengen's principal, Terry Stoughton, said the map was created before the estuary lands were given such designation. While the proponent's maps were released in the spring, the final management plan for the estuary was published in August 2007.
Stoughton denied the project would be ecologically harmful, noting it would rely primarily on old logging roads and result in net zero environmental impact.
"We cannot eliminate habitat without replacing it," Stoughton said. "When we finish the project, there has to be more fish than there were before."
He said this goal will be achieved in part through a proposed habitat channel stretching 1.1 kilometres off Fries Creek.
The environmental assessment was prepared by Barkley Project Group, a Nanaimo-based company with its own Independent Power Projects awaiting approval in Alberta.
For Buchanan, this is cause for concern.
"So in effect, isn't one IPP company assessing the impact another IPP will have on the environment?" he asked.
Stoughton said the company would not exercise a bias.
"What they do has no bearing on this project at all," he said. "They are professional biologists and professional engineers. They have to follow professional standards."
Pacific Greengen Power is a division of Second Reality Effects, a company that adds special effects to movies such as Scary Movie 4 and The Fog.
Buchanan questioned whether such a company was capable of properly designing an IPP.
"He has experience in the movie industry. He has experience in nothing else," he said of Stoughton.
But Stoughton said his engineering experience has proved quite useful in the process. He noted that many other IPPs are backed by investors rather than smaller companies like his own.
As the debate between the two parties grows more intense, Stoughton said he has become frustrated by Buchanan's refusal of a recent offer to meet and discuss his concerns.
Buchanan said the invitation has come too late to be useful, adding that the government should be the party hearing him out.
"It's the government that's responsible. The government is the guardian of the environment."
He said more than a dozen calls to B.C.'s environment minister, Barry Penner, have not been returned.
