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Letter: NDP Site C hydroelectric Dam Project decision applauded

It will create ongoing pollution-free, run-of-river electric power forever
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Environment Minister George Heyman, Premier John Horgan and Energy Minister Michelle Mungall announce decision to proceed with construction of the Site C dam, B.C. legislature library, Dec. 11, 2017. (Ragnar Haagen/Black Press)

Editor,

I congratulate the Site C decision, announced recently, to complete the Site C Project, and create ongoing pollution-free, run-of-river electric power forever!

The “gravity” of the situation is clear (pun intended).

In the 1970s, 50 years ago, the Quebec government started to build La Grande-1 Generating Plant and Reservoir.

The La Grande-1 is a hydroelectric power station on the La Grande River that is part of Hydro-Québec’s James Bay Project. The station can generate 1,436 MW. A run-of-river generating station, it is one of only two generating stations of the James Bay Project that use a reservoir without any major water-level fluctuations.

Diverted river water, held in the reservoir(s), falls through the electricity-generating turbines, exits, and carries on down the river, unchanged. Quebec today continues to have clean, renewable, electric power. Because of Quebec’s excess electricity generation capacity, that province continues to receive large royalty cheques, on a regular basis, from New York State.

Site C is a win-win for British Columbia and its residents. We will, one day, run out of oil, coal, iron ore (and gold), but we will never run out of rain water turning turbines, generating pollution-free, renewable electric energy, for the Province of B.C., and for the continent’s ever-growing electricity demands and needs.

Congratulations to the BC Liberals, who started the project, and for their foresight.

Peter B. Walsh

Quesnel