BC Hydro Selects Preferred Contractor for
Second Major Component of Site C
BC Hydro has selected a preferred contractor for the Site C generating station and spillways, work that is expected to cost well over $1 billion.

The contract with Aecon-Flatiron-Dragados-EBC Partnership still has to be finalized, with the award of the contract expected to be complete by the end of February. Work would not begin until the spring.

In an announcement, BC Hydro said should a final contract be reached with Aecon-Flatiron-Dragados-EBC (AFDE) Partnership, Hydro's board of directors would need to sign off on it.

The work on the powerhouse, penstocks, spillways and power intakes for the dam is the second largest contract for the project. At peak construction, anticipated to be in 2021, there would be about 1,600 people working on the generating station and spillways. Read The Vancouver Sun article. 

China's Appetite for Lithium on
Display in Canadian Takeover
Beijing and Shanghai-based Nextview New Energy Lion Hong Kong will pay $2.61 cash per share for Vancouver's Lithium X, a TSX-listed exploration and development company. In a sign the race to secure the materials for electric vehicle batteries is heating up, a Chinese-backed investment group said it would pay $265 million to purchase a Canadian lithium exploration company with no reported income.

Under the deal announced on [December 18], Beijing and Shanghai-based Nextview New Energy Lion Hong Kong will pay $2.61 cash per share, reflecting a 22.5 per cent premium on the closing price on December 15 of Vancouver's Lithium X, a TSX-listed exploration and development company with lithium projects in Argentina.

This marks Nextview's second deal in as many weeks to secure access to lithium, having last week purchased a 20 per cent stake in Banacora Minerals, which has a lithium project in Mexico. Nor is it the only Chinese company making such deals: Earlier this year, Sinochem, China's state chemical company along with several other Chinese companies placed competing bids to purchase a $4 billion stake in Chile's SQM, a giant lithium producer. Read The Vancouver Sun article.

Pressing On: BC Government Announces Decision to Complete
Construction of Site C Clean Energy Project
On December 11, 2017, the BC government announced its decision to complete construction of BC Hydro's 1,100-megawatt Site C Clean Energy Project (Site C), concluding that cancelling the project mid-construction would have imposed a $4 billion burden on provincial taxpayers, comprising $2.1 billion already spent and an estimated $1.8 billion in termination and site remediation costs. The BC government also confirmed that the capital cost estimate for Site C has been updated to $10.7 billion from BC Hydro's original estimate of $7.9 billion.

A copy of the BC government's press release, which includes links to relevant background materials, is available here.

In moving forward with the project, the BC government also announced a Site C "turnaround plan" to contain project costs and secure additional project-related benefits, including:

• a new "Project Assurance Board" to provide oversight over future contract procurement and management, project deliverables, environmental matters and quality assurance;
• a new community benefits program to ensure project benefits to local communities and to increase the number of apprentices and First Nations workers working on the project; and
• a new BC Food Security Fund to be funded by Site C revenues and dedicated to supporting farming and agricultural innovation and productivity in the province.

Read the full article by Sven Milelli, Selina Lee-Andersen and Morgan Troke with McCarthy Tétrault LLP. 

Three Reviews by the BC Government with
Reports Due in 2018
Currently the government is in the process of three separate reviews that all have safety elements, and impact forestry operations and our broader communities:

• Comprehensive 2017 flood and wildfire review announced middle of October 2017. BC fires displaced 65,000 people, destroyed more than 1.2 million hectares of forest and cost $550 million to fight. While government departments had already started their own technical reviews, this review will include looking at what can be improved.

Read the full article in the December issue of Forest Safety News. 

BC Supreme Court Grants Injunction against
Fish Farm Protesters
The BC Supreme Court has granted an injunction against a number of people who have trespassed on a fish farm company's property in recent months. Marine Harvest Canada applied for the injunction for their licensed aquaculture site on Midsummer Island, one of several fish farms they operate in the Broughton Archipelago, east of Port Hardy. Justice Peter Voith ruled the injunction was warranted because the protesters' actions interfered with Marine Harvest's operations, prevented the harvest and removal of salmon from the facility, and included threatening behaviour toward staff. Read full CBC article.

BC Court Rules American Indigenous
Man has Right to Hunt in Canada
An American Indigenous man's right to hunt in Canada has been upheld by a B.C. Supreme Court judge because his ancestors traditionally hunted in this country. Richard Desautel was charged under the Wildlife Act with hunting without a licence and hunting big game while not a resident of BC after he shot and killed an elk near Castlegar in 2010. Desautel, a member of the Lakes Tribe in Washington state, argued in provincial court that he was exercising his constitutional right to hunt for ceremonial purposes. The Lakes Tribe was described in court as a "successor group" to the Sinixt people, who lived, hunted and gathered in BC's Kootenay region prior to first contact with European settlers. Read the full Vancouver Sun article. 

Forest Legislation Updates
Effective December 12, 2017, changes were made to the Forest Act and the Allowable Annual Cut Administration Regulation, aiming to improve how timber partitions are enforced throughout British Columbia. They enhance the ability for the Province to better track and monitor the harvest of partitioned timber under a minister's order, and allow the minister to grant licensees relief from penalty in circumstances beyond the licence holder's control.

A transitional provision in the Great Bear Rainforest (Forest Management) Act was repealed on December 31, 2017 that allowed for the enactment of regulations to effectively bring the Act into operation and resolve any errors, ambiguities or inconsistencies arising in the Act.

Environmental Appeal Board Decisions

There were two Environmental Appeal Board decisions in the month of December.

• Gibsons Alliance of Business and Community Society; Marcia Timbres v. Director, Environmental Management Act [Stay Application – Denied]
• Revolution Organics, Limited Partnership v. A/Deputy Director, Regional Operations Branch; Director, Environmental Management Act [Preliminary Application – Appeals Allowed]