Consultants help to move B.C.’s “Site C” Dam forward

BC Hydro announced last month that it is moving forward with its plan to build a third dam on the Peace River in northeast B.C. The “Site C” Clean Energy Project will generate 30% of the electricity produced at the 1960s-era W.A.C. Bennett Dam, which is also on the Peace River, but with a reservoir only 5% of the size.
The announcement follows two years of studies on the current conditions done by several consulting engineering firms for BC Hydro as part of Stage 2 – Consultation and Technical Review. The utility filed the Stage 2 report in December 2009.
Some of the key environmental and engineering consulting companies who contributed to the Stage 2 phase were:
Keystone Wildlife Research (wildlife); Mainstream Aquatics, AMEC Earth and Environmental and LGL (fish and aquatics); Golder Associates (environmental monitoring and water quality); Stantec (greenhouse gases emissions model); RWDI Air (weather and climate); Lion’s Gate Consulting (socio-economic) and Pathfinders Endeavours (vegetation management).
Klohn Crippen Berger and SNC-Lavalin are the prime consultants for Stage 2.
The decision to proceed to Stage 3 (there are five stages to the project in all), was made by the province based on its expectation that B.C.’s electricity needs will grow 20-40% in the next 20 yeas. Site C is expected to provide 900 MW of capacity and 4,600 gigawatt-hours of electricity each year.
The goal is to have the dam producing power by 2020, but for now it has to go through the next regulatory review phase, which includes an independent environmental assessment. BC Hydro says consulting engineers will be involved in  Stage 3, but the scoping requirements have not yet been developed.