VICTORIA — One year after assuming the helm at B.C. Hydro, president and chief operating officer Chris O’Riley went before the Vancouver Board of Trade earlier this month for a progress report on Site C.
“I want to start by acknowledging that Site C has been extremely challenging,” he began with understatement worthy of the controversial hydroelectric dam.
A few weeks after assuming the Hydro presidency from the ousted Jessica McDonald last August, O’Riley (who had been in charge of Site C up to that point) admitted publicly that construction had fallen so far behind schedule that plans to divert the Peace River would need to be put off for a full year.
Then came the NDP-ordered review of the project, followed by a $2-billion top-up to the already hefty budget.
This year began in negotiations with the main civil works contractor, a back-and-forth that ended with Hydro providing $325 million in “incentives” to try to get the work back on track.
Still, O’Riley insisted that the root cause of many of those troubles, tension cracks on the geotechnically unstable north bank of the river, were now a thing of the past.
“We’ve substantially completed the massive excavation on the north-bank slope,” he told the board of trade audience. “We’ve removed almost 11 million cubic metres of earth to lay back the slope and stabilize it, so I’m pleased to report that those geotechnical issues are behind us.”
Hydro hopes those issues are behind it. But geotechnical concerns remain active in the Peace River country where lately there has been a revival of the controversy over the dam being built on less-than-stable layers of shale.
Hydro insists the correct term is “shale bedrock,” as disclosed three years ago in its filing to the joint federal-provincial review of the project, and no cause for concern.
In any event, O’Riley insists there will be no more delays in diverting the Peace River. Construction started on the first diversion tunnel in August. The second is scheduled to be underway by the end of this month. “We’ve completed all the critical work required to keep us on track,” meaning in September 2020.
He spoke to the board the week after a B.C. Supreme Court judge reserved decision on the application from the West Moberly First Nations for an injunction against Site C.
While the Hydro president didn’t address the specifics of the matter before the courts, he did concede that Hydro’s past dealings with Indigenous people fell well short of modern-day standards.
“It’s a terrible stain on the history of our province,” said O’Riley, referring to the development of the W.A.C. Bennett Dam and Williston Reservoir in the 1960s. “First Nations were considered people in the way, and that’s how they were treated. B.C. Hydro deeply regrets these impacts and the way it was done.”
All by way of saying, “we’ve learned from the past, and we’re building this project differently.”
“Since 2007, we’ve consulted with approximately 60 Indigenous groups … Our comprehensive consultation process has been recognized by the courts, with the Federal Court calling it, ‘A lengthy process, in good faith and extensive both qualitatively and quantitatively.’ ”
To date, Hydro’s record of accommodation and consultation has passed the test with the courts. But on that file, you’re only as good as the latest court decision. Still to come is the ruling from Justice Warren Milman on the injunction application, expected next month.
O’Riley also expanded on the latest thinking at Hydro about the need for Site C.
“We’re not building Site C for today, we have an energy surplus in the short term,” he told the board. “We’re not even building it for 2024 when the units first come into service. We’re building it for the next 100 years. We expect a growing need for both energy and capacity, and Site C is the best option to meet those needs over the long term.”
Those needs may well include providing electricity for a new industry based on the export of liquefied natural gas, starting with the pending LNG Canada project in Kitimat.
“If they make a decision to go forward, they will be a very big customer of B.C. Hydro,” O’Riley told reporter Nelson Bennett of Business in Vancouver in a follow-up interview. “They would be in our top three or four biggest customers.”
Hmmm … I wonder if that provides a clue to how the New Democrats intend to reconcile the development of LNG with their greenhouse-gas reduction targets.
Even without that possibility, O’Riley, no less than the New Democrats themselves, is taking ownership of Site C.
“As we move forward, we have a responsibility to deliver the project on time and against the new revised budget. I’m confident that given the changes we’ve made, we’re set up to do that,” he vowed, going all in on the controversial project.
During his opening remarks to the board, O’Riley noted that he started at Hydro in 1990 as a 22-year-old engineer and is the first president “in a generation” to come up through the ranks at the giant utility.
He is also the 11th president to occupy Hydro’s executive suite in 30 years, a reminder of the politically driven turnover in that pressure-cooker of a job. How long before No. 12 comes along depends on whether he can keep Site C on track within its much-revised schedule and budget.
