The Silence is Deafening.
For years, Arthur Hadland has been pushing for answers from BC Hydro and the BC Government in regards to the geotechnical concerns with the Site C dam in general, and the lack of bedrock specifically. He is not getting any response or even acknowledgement of his letters. Here is his latest letter which has not garnered a response to date:
May 18, 2018
Honourable Mike Farnworth
Minister of Public Safety and Solicitor General
Room 128, Parliament Buildings Victoria, BC V8V 1X4
RE: BEDROCK AT SITE C
The extra billings for Site C on the backs of the ratepayers and taxpayers are mounting at an alarming rate. The amount of material being moved in the north-bank is in excess of any project estimates.
The engineers at Site C cannot find bedrock!
The shale (old mud) is NOT bedrock in anyone’s imagination! * Thorndike Bernhart. World Book Dictionary. Volume 2 L-Z. 1989. shale n. a fine-grained rock, formed from hardened clay or mud, that splits easily into thin layers. The quest for bedrock to secure the dam site is continuing. BC Hydro has now hired 3 Italian Experts to find real bedrock for the construction of the Site C dam. The instructions provided to them was to spare no expense in the quest for construction grade bedrock.
There have been 5 professional reports previously that described the instability of the River Valley. The most damming quote occurred on Pg. 9 Klohn Crippen Berger and SNC-Lavalin September 2009 Report
“..the uncertainties in predicting both the extent and rate of the shoreline impacts lead to the proposal to adopt an observational approach for periodically reviewing and updating the reservoir impact lines after the reservoir has been filled.”
If the employed Engineers were acting in a professional manner, they would have already provided the Province and your offices with written surety of dam stability and safety. To ignore this major safety flaw in the dam construction is the ultimate definition of willful blindness.
Please provide:
The names of the 3 experts and their expertise
The reports and conclusions of the 3 experts.
Total cost for their employment.
An independent professional Engineering statement that the dam is stable and safe for future generations. The people of Old Fort are very vulnerable. No provisions have been made for their future safety. WHY NOT?
P.S. For a parallel example of a failed dam structure, please Goggle the Teton Dam (Idaho) 1976 - It also is located in a sedimentary basin.
This 2011 photo shows the massive slide of the sedimentary bedrock (Shaftsbury shales) lying above the axis of the proposed Site C dam site. This shale slump (slide) happened directly on the centerline of the proposed Site C. It occurred after heavy rains and buried the exploratory adit (mine or tunnel) that was constructed by BC Hydro (BCHPA) in the late 1970s. This failure of the shale substrate parallels the causes of the Peace River Bridge failure in 1957. This Shale cannot be considered to be bedrock. The other numerous slope failures along the River Valley can likely be attributed to the wetting of the Montmorillonite clay soils overlying this shale base.
[LiDAR data acquired between July and August 2006 and covered an area of approximately 750 square kilometres. This area includes all of the slopes on both sides of the proposed reservoir area along Peace River and its tributaries between Peace Canyon Dam and the confluence of Peace River and Pine River, about 12 kilometres downstream of the proposed Site C dam site.
A total of 1,834 landslide complexes comprising 4,010 individual landslides were Identified.
Estimated deposit volumes range between 1,600 cubic metres and 82 million cubic metres (PN-512, the Cache Creek Slide complex), with a mean value of 655,000 cubic metres, and a median value of 194,000 cubic metres.]
All information of this public project is being kept a secret. This is to the detriment of ratepayer and taxpayer interests. Where is the objective public watch dog?
The people of BC are being blindly obliged to pay for the Province’s economic and environmental boondoggle of the 21st Century!
It is becoming obvious that that Site C must be stopped due to geological instability.
I am awaiting a reasoned response.
Arthur A Hadland
Gramineae Seed Farm
Arthur & Laurel Hadland
6750 253 Road, Baldonnel, BC V0C 1C2
Phone: (250)789-3566 Cell: (250)262-9658
e-mail: hadland@bluenova.ca
