{"id":30406,"date":"2018-02-01T07:30:31","date_gmt":"2018-02-01T12:30:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=30406"},"modified":"2018-02-01T07:30:31","modified_gmt":"2018-02-01T12:30:31","slug":"megadams-not-clean-or-green-says-expert","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=30406","title":{"rendered":"Megadams Not Clean or Green, Says Expert"},"content":{"rendered":"<header class=\"article__header\" data-dev-object-descrip=\"organisms\/article\/article__header\" data-dev-status=\"IN-PROGRESS\">\n<div class=\"container-fluid\">\n<h3 data-bind=\"title\"><a href=\"https:\/\/thetyee.ca\/News\/2018\/01\/24\/Megadams-Not-Clean-Green\/\">Megadams Not Clean or Green, Says Expert<\/a><\/h3>\n<h4 data-bind=\"teaser\">Forty years of research show hydro dams create environmental damage, says David Schindler.<\/h4>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n<section class=\"featured-media\" data-dev-object-descrip=\"02-organisms\/article\/featured-media\">\n<div class=\"container-fluid\">\n<aside class=\"ad-box ad-box--halfpage\" data-dev-object-descrip=\"01-molecules\/blocks\/ad-box\">\n<div id=\"ad-300x600\" class=\"advertisement\"><\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<figure class=\"figure \" data-dev-object-descrip=\"01-molecules\/blocks\/figure\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"responsive-img\" src=\"https:\/\/thetyee.ca\/Opinion\/2018\/01\/08\/SiteC-work.jpg\" alt=\"SiteC-work.jpg\" width=\"960\" height=\"719\" data-pagespeed-url-hash=\"2864367973\" \/><figcaption class=\"caption\">\u2018When you add the emissions from building and producing materials for a dam, as well as the emissions from clearing forests and moving earth, the greenhouse gas production from hydro is expected to be about the same as from burning natural gas,\u2019 says professor David Schindler. <span class=\"caption__media--credit\">Photo from BC Hydro.<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n<article class=\"article__body main-col-container\" data-dev-object-descrip=\"organisms\/article\/article__body\" data-dev-status=\"IN-PROGRESS\">\n<div class=\"container-fluid clearfix \">\n<p>Politicians who describe dams as \u201cclean energy projects\u201d are talking \u201cnonsense\u201d and rejecting decades of science, says David Schindler, a leading water ecologist.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"aside hide-on-narrow-vp\" data-dev-object-descrip=\"01-molecules\/blocks\/aside\" data-dev-status=\"IN-PROGRESS\"><\/aside>\n<p>Former premier Christy Clark often touted the Site C dam as a \u201cclean energy project\u201d and Premier John Horgan has <a href=\"http:\/\/www.alaskahighwaynews.ca\/site-c\/q-a-premier-john-horgan-on-site-c-trade-mission-to-asia-1.23128716\">adopted<\/a> the same term.<\/p>\n<p>But that\u2019s not the story told by science, Schindler told The Tyee in a wide-ranging interview.<\/p>\n<p>In fact studies done by federal scientists identified dams as technological giants with lasting ecological footprints almost 40 years ago, he said.<\/p>\n<p>Dam construction and the resulting flooding produces significant volumes of greenhouse gas emissions. Canadian dams have strangled river systems, flooded forests, blocked fish movement, increased methylmercury pollution, unsettled entire communities and repeatedly violated treaty rights.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"aside \" data-dev-object-descrip=\"01-molecules\/blocks\/aside\" data-dev-status=\"IN-PROGRESS\">\n<section class=\"messaging-block messaging-block--ask\" data-dev-object-descrip=\"01-molecules\/blocks\/messaging-block--ask\" data-dev-status=\"IN-PROGRESS\"><\/section>\n<\/aside>\n<p>Schindler, a professor emeritus at the University of Alberta and an internationally honoured expert on lakes and rivers, pointed to the increased mercury levels as a health and environmental risk. \u201cAll reservoirs that have been studied have had mercury in fish increase several-fold after a river is dammed,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHow can any of those impacts be regarded as green or clean?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Site C dam is no exception. A <a href=\"http:\/\/watergovernance.sites.olt.ubc.ca\/files\/2017\/11\/23-11-17-Summary-Research-Site-C-FINAL-clean.pdf\">report<\/a> by the University of British Columbia\u2019s Program on Water Governance found the Site C project, which faced a federal-provincial <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ceaa-acee.gc.ca\/050\/documents\/p63919\/99173E.pdf\">Joint Review Panel<\/a> in 2014, \u201chas more significant negative environmental effects than any other project ever reviewed under the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act (including oilsands projects).\u201d<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;click on the above link to read the rest of the article&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Megadams Not Clean or Green, Says Expert Forty years of research show hydro dams create environmental damage, says David Schindler. \u2018When you add the emissions from building and producing materials for a dam, as well as the emissions from clearing forests and moving earth, the greenhouse gas production from hydro is expected to be about [&hellip;]<\/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],"tags":[2113,5549,94,103,18269,1406,18268,18270,18267,18271,5499],"class_list":["post-30406","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-energy-2","category-environment","tag-clean-energy","tag-andrew-nikiforuk","tag-british-columbia","tag-canada","tag-environmental-damage","tag-green-energy","tag-hydro-dams","tag-john-horgan","tag-megadams","tag-site-c-project","tag-the-tyee"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30406","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=30406"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30406\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30407,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30406\/revisions\/30407"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=30406"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=30406"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=30406"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}