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< May-June 2007
	Features
Politics of Power When the province of British Columbia decided to harvest Ashlu Creek for green hydroelectric power, it did so despite protests from the local government and kayakers. By Christian Knight

For thousands, perhaps millions of years, water melting from British Columbia’s Coast Range carved its way through a granite chasm, plummeting hundreds of feet before eventually flowing into the Squamish River 20 miles downstream. This Ashlu Creek flowed freely, protected by the obscurity of British Columbia’s merciless landscape.
No one seemed to notice the stream until the 1990s.
Soon after, the Ashlu became cursed with all the plagues of adolescent fame. It was immediately loved—for its beauty, its gradient, its granite bedrock, the surrounding landscape. And just as quickly, it was lusted after—for its gradient, its volume, its proximity to a large city, and the money it could produce.
By 2004, it was on four different lists, none more important—nor more menacing to paddlers—than the one it topped in 1994. BC Hydro, the province’s governmental energy-producer, listed the Ashlu as B.C.’s single best candidate for a green, energy-producing run-of-the-river project. The list was like a beacon flashing over the creek’s sculpted granite, urging energy producers to come, develop the Ashlu.
They did come. Dozens of them. All but one—the Ledcor Group—were turned away in failure.
Ledcor proposed a run-of-the-river project that would generate enough electricity—49 megawatts—to supply 23,000 homes every year. Its project would need no major dams or reservoirs to operate, and it would cause no large-scale flooding or greenhouse-gas emissions.
Paddlers didn’t buy it.
The project, they said, would threaten at least one of the Ashlu’s four sections and forever wart its most famous stretch, Commitment Canyon, with the construction of a power station.
The 15-year conflict that ensued has become a maelstrom of political craftwork, switched allegiances, and environmental protest. For Ledcor, it has been expensive and tedious. For paddlers and conservationists, it has become a tragedy.
More tragic than this outcome, however, is what it suggests for the future. No longer are British Columbian energy-producers looking for large-volume rivers. They are now exploring steep mountain streams near big cities—just like a lot of paddlers—and the Ashlu is the most prized.

THE PLAYERS
The Developer
Ledcor constructs all the things environmentalists despise, yet what affluence and civilization demand: Mines, highways, pipelines, and industrial and communications facilities. With 4,500 high-level employees and offices throughout Canada, Chicago, Dallas, and Reno, Ledcor is a skyscraper in the North American construction industry. In 2005, the employee-owned company yielded $991.8 million. It regularly contributes to British Columbia’s pro-business, pro-development Liberal Party, although the amount is insignificant.
Its projects include Mexico’s La Choya Gold Mine. Using a Mexican labor force and 17 major pieces of equipment, Ledcor worked assiduously seven days a week to dig a 375-foot-deep pit in the earth, removing 40 million cubic yards of land in less than a year. Recently, the 60-year-old company has turned its conscience toward the production of green energy, which tends to have less impact on the environment and the budget.
The Ashlu is its model project. Once construction is finished, Ledcor will provide online flow data and even adjust water levels with two to three days of notice to meet kayakers’ requests.
The man in charge of the project is Kelly Boychuk, engineer and project manager. He is soft-spoken, courteous, and articulate.
“It’s (Ashlu) a very good power project in the sense there’s lots of gradient, large volume of water, and it has close proximity to an electricity demand center (Vancouver),” Boychuk says.

The Policy Makers
The nine-member Squamish-Lillooet Regional District (SLRD) acts like a county commission or a town council would in the United States. It decides on regional levies and zoning. Its members are, more or less, ordinary citizens from the six towns it represents. Allocating the use of the area’s natural resources is one of the SLRD’s most important functions. They have already allowed hydroelectric projects on several other streams in the area, including Rutherford, Mamquam, Nelson, and Miller Creeks. In 2001, the SLRD paid $60,000 for a management plan of the area. The plan included the Ashlu on a list of 11 rivers that should be exempt from any kind of development. To save the Ashlu, its chairman, Russ Oakley, offered Ledcor and BC Hydro something else.
“I was encouraging him [Kelly Boychuk, Ledcor’s project manager] to come here [to the Bridge River Valley],” says Oakley. “Don’t go to the Ashlu. We have five rivers in the Upper Bridge River Valley that could produce good power.”

The Green Paddler
Environmentalism introduced Bryan Smith, 32, to sea kayaking, which in turn, introduced him to whitewater. When he arrived in Squamish in the spring of 2004, the movement to save Ashlu Creek was already charging over the next horizon line, and Stuart Smith (no relation), British Columbia’s whitewater pioneer, was leading the rally. Bryan Smith quickly gained a reputation for his environmental research, and the debut of his kayak film, B.C. Summer 06, which won best film in the Canadian National Paddling Film Festival. “I’ve paddled hundreds of rivers on four different continents,” he says. “And if I had to pick just one river, just one, the Ashlu would be it. That’s when it (my campaign) started. Right then. When I paddled the Commitment Canyon section of the Ashlu for the first time.”

The Tribe
The 3,500-member Squamish First Nation asserts aboriginal rights on all the land their ancestors once claimed—about 3,700 square miles from Vancouver northward to Whistler and west to Howe Sound. This includes Ashlu Creek. Unfortunately for the tribe, the provincial government of British Columbia doesn’t recognize the tribe’s territorial claim. It does acknowledge the tribe’s 120 square miles of reserve—some near the town of Squamish—over which the Nation enjoys similar sovereign rights as Native Americans do on U.S. reservations. Ashlu Creek is not on the reserve. The result is a perpetual land dispute between the province and the tribe.
“We are very interested when the provincial government is giving away our rights to our land,” says Bill Williams, chief of the Squamish First Nation tribe. “When the provincial government gives our rights away for somebody to build a hotel, a motel, or anything else, we are concerned about the effect on ecology and recreation.”

1989
Exploratory Intent
SNC Lavaline applies for a permit to construct a hydropower project on Ashlu Creek. BC Hydro ultimately rejects Lavaline’s bid. The energy company’s interest, however, reveals Ashlu Creek’s potential for a power source. It’s high volume, has gradient, and lies within 100 miles of Vancouver. In the next five years, dozens of other energy companies file license applications, according to Boychuk.
“They’ve had a high failure rate,” he says. “There are many treasure hunters who have gone away empty-handed.”

Spring 1993
First Descent
Almost a decade before Twitch IV features the creeks he first explored, Stuart Smith, then 34, and a buddy launch their kayaks into the Ashlu. They discover a gem: Polished granite bedrock. Carribbean-blue water. Class V steep creeking on the upper three miles. Big water Class IV boulder gardens on the lower mile and a half. “It was just spectacular,” Smith says. The Ashlu quickly transforms from an exploratory run to a local classic, drawing paddlers to Squamish.

1994
Perfect Candidate
To break a foreign energy-buying habit, BC Hydro invites private companies’ proposals for power. The best candidate for a project, BC Hydro says, is the Ashlu. Forty-four parties submit an array of green-minded plans, involving wind and gas from landfills. Most are proposals to develop hydroelectricity. One of the organizations to submit a plan is Ledcor. Another is the Squamish First Nation.
Ledcor argues it can produce 230 gigawatt hours of electricity, enough to supply 23,000 homes every year. The monetary costs of construction will be about $75 million.
The environmental costs—well, that’s what everybody’s fighting about. Ledcor says it will clear two miles of coniferous forest to make room for the two-mile-long power line they’ll construct along the existing gravel road. It’ll build a powerhouse (about the size of a large home) below the take-out to the Commitment Canyon section. Two-and-a-half miles upstream, they’ll install an inflatable weir, which will divert half of the Ashlu’s flow—1,000 cfs—into a 2.5-mile-long inter-mountain tunnel. Result: At least 50 percent less water in the Commitment Canyon section.
Ledcor says its project will increase paddlers’ days on the Ashlu by reducing the flow to a more runnable water level. The proposal earns Ledcor at least two opponents: Skeptical kayakers and environmentalists, and the Squamish First Nation.

OCTOBER 1998
Commitment Canyon
Every time they drive up the gravel road to paddle the steep Class V Mine Run, Sam Maltby, L.J. Wilson, and Eric Bowers pass a sculpted granite canyon with walls so steep in spots scouting is possible only by dangling from a rope. After two full days of peering into the four-mile section from climbing ropes, the three of them make the first descent of what is now known as Commitment Canyon.
“It’s one of the more impressive sections in the sense that it’s tighter and there’s more bedrock,” says Wilson. “It’s a deeper canyon. It’s spectacular.”

NOVEMBER 2001
Comes With the Territory
Ledcor knows it needs the blessing of the Squamish First Nation to pursue the project, so it begins negotiating with the tribe. All 16 members of the tribal council oppose the project based on cultural, environmental, and economic reasons. Ledcor expects the opposition.
“Whenever you deal with First Nations, you’ve got to build up that trust and confidence,” Boychuk says. “You try to get the vast majority on your side. And extremists will be extremists. Some people have opinions and they’ve made their minds up.”

NOVEMBER 2003
Power Rush in the Wild West
To curtail British Columbia’s energy shortfall and produce its own green electricity, the provincial government directs BC Hydro, a provincial agency, to initiate the Green Power Program. As a result, BC Hydro no longer produces power. Instead, it administers the program and buys electricity from private energy companies. Applying for these Independent Power Projects costs $5,000 or $10,000, depending on the size of the project. But the payoff is enormous. In exchange for a winning bid, BC Hydro guarantees the purchase and distribution of power for 10 or 20 years. The program ignites a power rush throughout British Columbia and more specifically, the Squamish area’s gradient-rich Sea-to-Sky Corridor. Within a few years, private corporations will apply for licenses to develop 60 of the streams in the area. Most of the winning applicants, says Shane Simpson, environmental critic for the New Democratic Party, B.C.’s progressive party, are political friends and insiders.
“It’s like the Wild West right now,” he says.

SPRING 2003
Switching Sides
After a year of intense negotiations, the Squamish First Nation tribal council reverses its earlier opposition and guarantees the tribe’s official support of the project. In exchange, the council has two stipulations: Ledcor must employ a mostly Squamish Nation workforce, and “after 40 years of operating the project and paying the bank debt, the project is given to the Squamish First Nation,” Boychuk says. “They will become owners and operators. This is very unique.”

SPRING 2004
A New Force
Bryan Smith paddles the Ashlu for the first time with Jonaven Moore, a Squamish-based paddler and professional snowboarder. Moore is already active in the fight to save the Ashlu from development and convinces Smith to attend a Squamish-Lillooet Regional District (SLRD) public hearing on the topic. The SLRD is considering Ledcor’s petition to change the zoning of the Ashlu Creek area from Natural Resource to Industrial. Industrial zoning would give Ledcor the go-ahead. Natural Resource would not. Members from the Squamish First Nation arrive by the busload to support Ledcor’s project. Smith begins filming for his upcoming documentary on the Ashlu.

AUGUST 2004
Grassroots Effort
Hundreds of paddlers from the United States and Canada flock to Squamish to support and participate in the first of three Ashlu Festivals. The purpose of the festival is to raise awareness of the stream’s peril and raise support and funds to save it.

JANUARY 2005
A Shocking Decision
The third SLRD public meeting draws more than 200 people. Half protest the project. At 12:30 a.m., board members have to end the meeting, even though they haven’t heard some opinions. The next day, the district announces its decision.
“Everyone is eagerly anticipating the SLRD’s decision,” Bryan Smith recalls. “We weren’t very optimistic, and because it was the third meeting, the tide had changed. Ledcor kept going. We lost some steam.”
The decision shocks both sides. Citing the project’s conflict with the SLRD’s official community plan, the district votes 8-1 to deny the zoning change. The Ashlu is saved.

MAY 2006
Suspicious Tactics
Shane Simpson of the New Democractic Party is combing through the Liberal Party’s Bill 30—a housekeeping bill of miscellaneous legislative proposals—when his brain snags on Section 56. The language seems to strip local governments—such as the SLRD—of their power to zone land for natural-resource purposes and hands that power to the provincial government. “When I discovered it, I thought, ‘This looks odd,’ ” Simpson says. “It was written in the most innocuous way.”
With a strong Liberal Party majority in parliament, the bill passes easily. The SLRD’s decision to ban development on the Ashlu is rendered moot.
“It [Section 56] takes one level of government out of the equation,” says SLRD chairman Russ Oakley. “And that’s what the province wanted.
“Ledcor is a big player in the Independent Power Producer game in B.C. They made it obvious they weren’t happy with our decision.”
Ledcor’s Boychuk endorses Bill 30, saying it removes a bureaucratic burden from municipal governments that aren’t equipped to handle such decisions.

AUGUST 2006
Beginning of the End
With nearly 40 construction workers and several pieces of heavy machinery, Ledcor tears out conifer stands to construct two-and-a-half miles of power lines. “It’s a construction site,” Bryan Smith says. “They have a security guard up there 24/7. They said we wouldn’t have more than 15-minute delays. I’ve been denied access 20 times over the last four months. If it’s easy to let me in, they let me in. If it’s not easy to let me in, they won’t let me in.”
Stuart Smith and Boychuk engage in a war of words in the local newspaper, The Squamish Chief.
“Stories like it’s going to wreck the river, there’s never going to be any kayaking again are so blown out of proportion because it’s simply fiction, not fact,” Boychuk tells the paper.
Smith responds with this terse statement: “When they continue to say that the season will be enhanced, it’ll be better for paddlers, it’s just B.S. … It’s pretty easy to look at the facts. If you could plot and look at the amount of water they’re going to take out, you can see quite clearly on paper without any interpretation that the season will be reduced by about 75 percent.”

OCTOBER 2006
Fighting Back
The passage of Bill 30 enrages British Columbia’s regional governments. “I was livid, but I wasn’t surprised,” Oakley says. “Every municipality and regional district asked British Columbia to repeal Section 56. Without us having the ability to zone anything on Crown land, we can’t decide anything for ourselves. They say there will be an opportunity for us to have input. But we can’t see the details.”
Most people, by this point, are referring to Bill 30 as the Ashlu Bill. “There are a lot of people making a lot of money up here right now,” says Leonard Krog, attorney general critic for the New Democratic Party. “We see it as a great giveaway from the public to a few private companies.”

DECEMBER 2008
The Knockout
Ledcor expects to be finished with the project.

LISTED
Within a decade of Stuart Smith’s first descent of the Ashlu, the creek was on four lists. In 1994, BC Hydro calls Ashlu Creek the best candidate for a green-energy producing project. The 2001, $60,000 management plan of the Squamish-Lillooet Regional District (SLRD) included Ashlu Creek in a list of 11 streams the province should protect from any kind of development, even those involving green energy. The Ashlu was No. 6 on the BC Outdoor Recreation Council’s 2004 list of the province’s most endangered rivers. In 2002, B.C.’s Ministry of Sustainable Resources conducted a study of paddlers’ use and opinions of the top 100 runs in the Sea-to-Sky Corridor. Results showed the Ashlu’s lower four runs ranked in the top five of the corridor’s best creeks, streams, or rivers.

THE HIT LIST
BC Hydro awarded in July 2006 38 new contracts to independent power producers throughout British Columbia. These certificates will result in powerhouses, diversion canals, and logging on at least 29 British Columbian creeks. Combined with the 14 Green Power Generation projects BC Hydro awarded in 2002, at least 43 of BC’s creeks will have development in their future. The following is a list of paddled streams that will host power projects:
Ashlu Creek, Mkw’alts Creek, Fries Creek, China Creek, Spuzzum Creek, Ucona River, Kitsault River, Kwoiek Creek, Bone Creek, Songhees Creek, Rainy River, Lower Clowhom, Upper Clowhom, Kookipi Creek, Tamihi Creek, Franklin River, Sakwi Creek, English Creek, McKelvie Creek, *Upper and Lower Mamquam River, *Brandywine Creek, *Rutherford Creek, *Miller Creek, *Soo River

* Already producing energy