• About
    • Which Energy Mix is this?
  • Climate News Network Archive
  • Contact
The climate news that makes a difference.
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
No Result
View All Result
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
  FEATURED
Danske Bank Quits New Fossil Fuel Financing January 23, 2023
Extreme Warming Ahead Even as Worst-Case Scenarios Grow ‘Obsolete’ January 23, 2023
Notley Scorches Federal Just Transition Bill as Fossil CEO Calls for Oilsands Boom January 23, 2023
IRON OXIDE: New Battery Brings Long-Duration Storage to Grids, 750 Jobs to West Virginia January 23, 2023
BREAKING: GFANZ Banks, Investors Pour Hundreds of Billions into Fossil Fuels January 17, 2023
Next
Prev

New Exposé Reveals $171 Million in No-Bid Contracts on Site C Hydro Megaproject

January 18, 2021
Reading time: 3 minutes

Jason Woodhead/ Wikimedia Commons

Jason Woodhead/ Wikimedia Commons

 

Disgraced engineering giant SNC Lavalin and a former BC Hydro chief engineer were among the big winners when the provincial utility awarded C$171 million in sole-source, “no-bid” contracts for its controversial Site C hydropower megaproject, according to an exposé published by The Narwhal last week.

The contracts, issued over an eight-month period ending in July 2020, included three deals worth $27 million to SNC, on top of $131 million in sole-source contracts BC Hydro had already awarded to SNC to design “core components” of the Site C dam, The Narwhal reports, citing documents obtained through a freedom of information (FOI) request. In 2013, the news story notes, SNC was hit with a 10-year ban on World Bank contracts due to fraud and corruption on overseas projects.

  • Be among the first to read The Energy Mix Weekender
  • A brand new weekly digest containing exclusive and essential climate stories from around the world.
  • The Weekender:The climate news you need.
New!
Subscribe

In December 2019, the utility also issued a $309,000 no-bid contract to TE Little Consulting, a firm led by former senior staffer Tim Little, who was to serve as an “independent engineer” on the project. TE Little received a similar contract for $360,000 in December 2018.

Meanwhile, the cost of the intensely controversial project on B.C.’s Peace River has gone through three budget increases, skyrocketing from $6.6 billion when then-premier Gordon Campbell announced it in 2010 to an estimated $10.7 billion in 2017. “But that was before the disclosure last July of geotechnical problems so profound that BC Hydro says it doesn’t know how to fix them, how long it will take, or what it will cost,” The Narwhal writes.

Earlier this month, Energy Minister Bruce Ralston received what he called a “helpful” status update on Site C from former deputy finance minister Peter Milburn, but said he wouldn’t comment on the details until the report went to cabinet. After that meeting Thursday, Premier John Horgan said the province had commissioned two new expert studies to look into the site’s geotechnical problems, adding that there were several “decision points ahead” for the provincial cabinet, The Narwhal writes.

In an alert to supporters that day, Dogwood Communications Director Kai Nagata said ministers were split on the future of a project he described as a “huge gift from taxpayers to international fracking companies”.

Meanwhile, Democracy Watch co-founder Duff Conacher told Cox a public inquiry should be convened to look into all direct-award contacts on the project. “In the big picture, [BC Hydro’s] contracting out process violates all the rules of good government spending,” he said. “This pattern of contracting out has been seen in so many past boondoggles and white elephants of government spending.”

Cox places the total value of BC Hydro’s sole-source contracting on the project in the hundreds of millions of dollars. She says the precise total is hard to tie down because most of the FOI responses she’s received over the last four years have been redacted.

The latest list contains 19 contracts worth nearly $50 million to companies owned by or associated with Treaty 8 First Nations that signed impact benefits agreements with the utility.

The Narwhal has much more detail on this story. Read the full exposé here, and get a copy of Cox’s book on Site C, Breaching the Peace, here.



in Canada, Climate & Society, Climate Impacts & Adaptation, Community Climate Finance, First Peoples, Health & Safety, Hydropower, Jurisdictions, Renewable Energy, Sub-National Governments

The latest climate news and analysis, direct to your inbox

Subscribe

Related Posts

United Nations
Air & Marine

Salvage of $20B ‘Floating Time Bomb’ Delayed by Rising Cost of Oil Tankers

January 27, 2023
4
RL0919/wikimedia commons
Finance & Investment

Danske Bank Quits New Fossil Fuel Financing

January 23, 2023
2.1k
@tongbingxue/Twitter
Ending Emissions

Extreme Warming Ahead Even as Worst-Case Scenarios Grow ‘Obsolete’

January 23, 2023
259

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

I agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy.

Trending Stories

RL0919/wikimedia commons

Danske Bank Quits New Fossil Fuel Financing

January 23, 2023
2.1k
@tongbingxue/Twitter

Extreme Warming Ahead Even as Worst-Case Scenarios Grow ‘Obsolete’

January 23, 2023
259
Weirton, WV by Jon Dawson/flickr

IRON OXIDE: New Battery Brings Long-Duration Storage to Grids, 750 Jobs to West Virginia

January 23, 2023
492
Rachel Notley/Facebook

Notley Scorches Federal Just Transition Bill as Fossil CEO Calls for Oilsands Boom

January 23, 2023
247
James Vincent Wardhaugh/flickr

Canada Sidelines Ontario’s Ring of Fire, Approves Separate Mining Project

December 4, 2022
373
Argonne National Laboratory/flickr

$1.5B EV Battery Materials Plant Coming to Eastern Ontario

July 20, 2022
1.4k

Recent Posts

United Nations

Salvage of $20B ‘Floating Time Bomb’ Delayed by Rising Cost of Oil Tankers

January 27, 2023
4
EcoAnalytics

Albertans Want a Just Transition, Despite Premier’s Grumbling

January 23, 2023
185
Sergio Boscaino/flickr

Dubai Mulls Quitting C40 Cities Over ‘Costly’ Climate Target

January 24, 2023
84
hangela/pixabay

New UK Coal Mine Faces Two Legal Challenges

January 24, 2023
43

Gas Stoves Enter U.S. Climate Culture War, Become ‘Bellwether’ for Industry

January 22, 2023
72
Jeff Hitchcock/flickr.

BREAKING: GFANZ Banks, Investors Pour Hundreds of Billions into Fossil Fuels

January 23, 2023
493
Next Post
News 1130/Twitter

Alberta Inquiry Touts ‘Junk Climate Denial’, Conspiracy Theories in Fossil Industry’s Defence

The Energy Mix - The climate news you need

Copyright 2023 © Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy Policy and Copyright
  • Cookie Policy

Proudly partnering with…

scf_withtagline
No Result
View All Result
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities

Copyright 2022 © Smarter Shift Inc. and Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

Manage Cookie Consent
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behaviour or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Manage options Manage services Manage vendors Read more about these purposes
View preferences
{title} {title} {title}