{"id":10588,"date":"2015-08-01T07:09:59","date_gmt":"2015-08-01T12:09:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=10588"},"modified":"2015-08-01T07:09:59","modified_gmt":"2015-08-01T12:09:59","slug":"as-site-c-breaks-ground-linked-union-declares-opposition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=10588","title":{"rendered":"As Site C Breaks Ground, Linked Union Declares Opposition"},"content":{"rendered":"

As Site C Breaks Ground, Linked Union Declares Opposition<\/a><\/h3>\n

BCGEU cites First Nation infringement and loss of habitat in motion against controversial dam.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The union representing many British Columbia government workers has taken a position against building the Site C dam, a project some of its members are working on and that other unions support.<\/p>\n

“This was a membership driven motion,” said Stephanie Smith, the president of the B.C. Government and Service Employees’ Union. “We have 68,000 members and there is a diversity of interests.”<\/p>\n

Smith said the motion was brought forward by the union’s environment committee and passed unanimously. There was no debate even though Smith invited discussion, she said.<\/p>\n

A statement from the union said it opposes building the dam because it is not needed, it will cause a loss of habitat, it infringes First Nations’ hunting and fishing rights, productive agricultural lands will be lost and it fails the economic test of “providing a lasting net benefit to British Columbians.”<\/p>\n

First proposed some 30 years ago, Site C is to be the third of a series of dams on the Peace River and will flood an 83-kilometre long stretch of the river to generate 1,100 megawatt hours of electricity, enough to power 450,000 homes per year.<\/p>\n

The provincial government\u00a0approved<\/a>\u00a0the $8.8-billion BC Hydro project in Dec. 2014 and announced it intended to start construction this summer.<\/p>\n

BC Hydro spokesperson Kevin Aquino confirmed project construction has begun, and will ramp up over the summer. ”Security has mobilized to [the] site and some initial clearing activities on the north bank of the dam site area are underway,” he said, adding gates and signage have been installed.<\/p>\n

Several First Nations and local landowners have filed lawsuits trying to stop BC Hydro from building the dam.<\/p>\n

Publicly owned asset<\/strong><\/p>\n

BCGEU members have been involved in the planning and approval of the project. Within B.C.’s energy and mines ministry, about half a dozen members are currently working on the Site C file, a ministry spokesperson confirmed.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As Site C Breaks Ground, Linked Union Declares Opposition BCGEU cites First Nation infringement and loss of habitat in motion against controversial dam. The union representing many British Columbia government workers has taken a position against building the Site C dam, a project some of its members are working on and that other unions support. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4,6],"tags":[7724,7720,94,103,7722,1103,1342,7723,7721,5499],"class_list":["post-10588","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-energy-2","category-environment","category-liberty","tag-bc-hydro","tag-bcgeu","tag-british-columbia","tag-canada","tag-dam","tag-electricity","tag-first-nations","tag-hydro","tag-site-c","tag-the-tyee"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10588","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10588"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10588\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10589,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10588\/revisions\/10589"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10588"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10588"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10588"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}