Images being circulated over email claiming to show the Ashlu River reduced to a trickle due to a new Independent Power Project has created a firestorm, but the power purveyor has said the images don't depict the Ashlu at all.
"What you see that is dry is not even the Ashlu River," said Innergex western vice president Richard Blanchet, calling the critics' practices "not fair."
Late last week, Rafe Mair, the writer, broadcaster and former B.C. cabinet minister, sent out an email with two images he said he'd received from Squamish Valley resident and Save Our Rivers member Tom Rankin.
He forwarded the images with an email and subject header announcing "Campbell's big lie - prepare for shock and anger!"
"I don't, admittedly, have a long fuse but I can't remember when I was so sad and angry as when I saw these pictures," he writes. "How many fish do you suppose can now reside in the Ashlu, once a gem? A trickle! A bullhead couldn't survive in it!"
The message ends on the rallying cry: "Remember the Ashlu!!!"
Calls and emails to Rankin were not returned by deadline.
Blanchet said the images show a side channel to the Ashlu, not the mighty river itself.
"It's downstream from the emergency spillway, and it's a side channel," he said.
Blanchet provided The Chief with a wider shot of the area that shows the side channel alongside the rushing river.
He said the plant hasn't even been in operation since Feb. 28 because routine repairs had to be done in the tunnel.
"We have not been diverting ebb and flows for the last five weeks at the plant," he said.
Blanchet said The Chief was the only media outlet to contact him, however the Ministry of Environment, which also received the photos claimed to have been taken by Rankin, contacted the company.
Blanchet said Innergex will provide to MOE "full records of the flows in the creek and we have been maintaining the IFR [instream flow requirements] as per our agreements and licence we have with the province. We're a very open book."
Calls the ministry were not returned.
