B.C. Hydro has rejected a proposal by the Tsilhqot’in National Government and Run of River Power to build a 34-megawatt power-generation facility 75 km west of Williams Lake.
The Tsilhqot’in Power project was submitted as part of B.C. Hydro’s Bioenergy Phase 2 call that requested larger-scale biomass projects to generate up to 1,000 GWh per year of electricity. Projects were also required to meet the province’s definition of clean or renewable electricity. The proposed wood-fired plant would have utilized Mountain Pine beetle kill trees, logged trees and mill waste to produce power.
Joe Alphonse, Tsilhqot’in National Government chair, is disappointed and says that without the project communities in the Chilcotin may be at an increased risk of wildfires.
“The province has a duty to ensure that forest management in the Chilcotin is done in an acceptable manner and I’ll go as far to say that without an alternative-energy plan they will not meet that goal,” he says.
“It’s not just the dead pine beetle. I look across the valley at the Douglas fir stands and 30 to 40 per cent of those trees are dead as well.
“So there is no way you can come into the Chilcotin and no way you can ensure our forest is going to be returned to green stand without an entity like our proposal.”
Alphonse suggested that if the government didn’t “ensure proper management of our forest out there,” he and others would have to “create a situation to bring attention to the issue.”
The biomass project was further challenged by a lack of a connecting transmission line.
“We need a sufficient power line from our location to a major transit line located in Soda Creek,” Alphonse says.
Project partner ROR Power said that despite the rejection it is committed to the project.
“It’s still a project we very much believe in and I believe we are going to be working with our First Nations partners to move the project forward,” says Kirsten Langan, director of corporate communications for ROR Power.
Langan went on to say it was too early to determine what the next steps would be.
