Along the Fraser: Hydro misses mark on power line

Jack Emberly is a retired and environmentalist.

image credit: The News/Files

We in B.C. are blessed by waterpower the best way to generate electricity, providing environmental impacts are properly addressed John Kelly, Alouette River Management Society.

The Alouette River Management Societydirector John Kelly is a retired B.C. Hydro employee who advised construction crews on environmental practices when constructing transmission line right of ways.

Right of way clearing creates environmental impacts, said Kelly. The challenge is to avoid damage, or mitigate the impacts.

Kelly said Hydro missed the mark recently on a local section of its Interior- to-Lower Mainland line, 250-kilometres of new towers and cables through bush from Merritt to Coquitlam.

On Nov. 28, forester Cheryl Powers drove us to a clear cut in the UBC Malcolm Knapp Research Forest that she and Kelly are concerned about. Here, towers 5035 and 5034 stand atop a road that dips to three small streams feeding Millionaire Creek, a coho producer.

Virtually the entire road has been rough graded to the mineral line to remove native vegetation, said Kelly. Alder, and invasive species like blackberry and Japanese knotweed take over. This results in ongoing clearing costs. One of my frustrations is the failure to have learned from years of managing vegetation to avoid erosion, fouling waterways, and invasive species.

We met workers about to lay straw down, and poke willow shoots into the ground to lessen the impacts of unmanaged water erosion, and stream siltation.

Kelly said this should have been done before the rainy season.

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Along the Fraser: Hydro misses mark on power line