Canada has had far more extensive experience with dams than has Malaysia. For this reason, and because it can be useful to link study of conditions in other countries with more familiar conditions in Canada, it is appropriate to develop a basic understanding of this Canadian experience. Over the last forty years, as this experience has accumulated, attitudes towards dam projects have also evolved in Canada. By recounting briefly this
experience, it can be demonstrated how i) attitudes concerning dams can change, sometimes over several decades; ii) these attitudes and perceptions reflect an integration of environmental, political and economic considerations. That is, a dam is never simply an environmental, or a political issue (for example).

My focus will be on changing attitudes towards dams and rivers in British
Columbia. A particular emphasis will be on one recent project: the Kemano Completion Project, an expansion of a hydroelectric project originally built in the early 1950s, but that was canceled in early 1995.

In focusing on the rivers of British Columbia, two themes will become especially evident. One concerns the relation between the development of rivers, primarily for hydroelectric power production, and the general economic development of a province. The second theme concerns how the use of rivers relates to Canadian politics and economic priorities, and, more generally, to the values and attitudes of Canadians towards their landscape.

One can discuss these themes in terms of two seminal events, that mark, roughly, the beginning and end of a period of transformation of attitudes towards rivers in British Columbia, and their development. These events occurred in 1950 and in 1995. In each year, an important decision was made concerning large-scale river development in northwestern BC.

In 1950 the decision was made to construct a massive river diversion and
hydroelectric powerplant on the Nechako River, a tributary of the Fraser (Figure 1). This project became known as the Kemano Project. It involved the creation of a reservoir, and reversal of the flow of most of the flow of the Nechako, to be sent down a tunnel, to generate electricity for an Alcan aluminum smelter at the town of Kitimat, on the B.C. coast (Figure 2). The project had considerable consequences for both the environment,
and the people of this region However, the decision to construct the project was made quickly, with a minimum of debate or controversy. By 1955 the project was in place.

In 1995 a second decision was made. This decision concerned a proposed
expansion of the project's electrical generation capacity. In this case, however, and extensive, and highly visible debate took place concerning this project. Eventually, the decision was made to not continue with this project, even though construction had already begun.

In short, therefore, a strong contrast is evident between 1950 and 1995 -- not only in the actual decisions, but in how the decisions were made. How can this contrast be explained? An immediate answer, of course, lies in the facts of the cases. Evidence presented during public debate prior to 1995 demonstrated that the project would likely have significant impacts on valued resources, such as the salmon stocks of the Nechako River. However, for a more complete answer it is necessary to examine the history of water development in British Columbia, and, more generally, the economic and political history of British Columbia itself between the late 1940s and 1995.

The Era of Big B.C. dams
In 1948 the B.C. government invited Alcan Aluminum to study the feasibility of developing the province's hydropower potential to support an aluminum industry. Alcan surveyed this potential, identified the Nechako site as the most promising, and with the assistance of various and generous government subsidies, constructed the Kemano project, completing it in 1955.

At that time, several perceptions of the project were evident. On the one hand, within the Canadian business and engineering communities, there was great enthusiasm. Construction created 2400 jobs directly, and many more among the project's suppliers. More generally, the project was seen as an important means of turning B.C. rivers to greater use. Ultimately, the project was a powerful symbol of progress. As one magazine ad of the time enthused:

"An ad in the Engineering Journal showed a huge hand reaching down out of the heavens, like the hand of God, to place a power plant at the head of the reservoir. "They've put a heart into a mountain," said the ad, in which the Bank of Montreal congratulated Alcan on completing the job. "Yes, this is among the very greatest things to happen to the West since the transcontinental railroads were built -- one of the biggest strides yet in Canada's march to greatness."

Others, however, felt less enthusiasm towards the project. Among fishers, there was concern about the potential loss of salmon stocks. The Nechako River was one of the richest salmon tributaries on the Fraser river, supporting many thousands of spawning salmon. When, however, the dam on the Nechako was completed, and the dam was closed to allow the reservoir to fill, river flow dropped to zero between October 1952 and June 1954, followed by only intermittent discharges from June 1955 to January 1957. During this dry period salmon stocks were virtually eliminated.

There was also less enthusiasm among those concerned about wildlife and natural areas. The project flooded several river valleys and lakes within Tweedsmuir Provincial Park, the largest provincial park in B.C.. As a result of the project, the boundaries of the park were redrawn, removing 200,000 acres from it.

Most especially, there was very little enthusiasm within several native communities in the region. The first meeting with natives whose community was located where the reservoir would eventually be, took place on April 3, 1952. The issue to be discussed was relocation of the community, and compensation for those affected. The issue was of some urgency: the dam had already been built, and five days after the meeting, the dam was closed, and the reservoir started to fill. A settlement was reached on April 21, 1952.
Evidently, the natives were forced to move with very little advance notice, to another community that they knew little about. Many were forced to abandon their traditional occupations of hunting, trapping or fishing. One who experienced this later recalled:

"In the 1950s my people were called to a meeting on the Cheslatta Reserve on very short notice. Some of our people were trapping and did not make it to the meeting. Those that were able to attend did not know what it was about. However, they went anyway, just to find out that they had to move from their homes immediately. Not next week, next month, or next year, but they had to move out now. Some of the elders refused to move for the love of their land. They were told that if they didn't move the law would move them. Seeing that they had no choice but to move, they did."

The compensation provided to those relocated was inadequate. In 1987 (35 years after the relocation), the federal government accepted this claim; those affected, however, are continuing to seek additional compensation.

Overall, however, there was very little concern evident in official circles about these varied consequences of the project. This was reflected in the treatment of those relocated. It was also reflected in the lack of attention paid to protecting salmon stocks. The federal fisheries department had recommended some modifications to the project that could provide some protection to the salmon stocks. However, Alcan choose not to carry out
these modifications, and there was no insistence that they do so.

This pattern of development continued in B.C. for several decades. Between the 1950s and the 1970s a series of dams were constructed across the province. As Figure 3 indicates, the dams were concentrated on two large river systems: the Peace, and the Columbia rivers. This reflected the "two rivers policy" of the provincial government. Projects included:

• The W.A.C. Bennett Dam. Between 1962 and 1967 this largest B.C. dam was constructed on the Peace River, to form B.C's largest reservoir (Williston Lake).
• Several dams on the Columbia River. These were the product of negotiations with the United States, extending over several years, and concluding in 1964 with the signing of the Columbia River Treaty. The agreement included construction of three dams in Canada: Duncan (1967), Keenleyside (1969), and Mica (1971). Together, these dams flooded a considerable fraction of the Columbia River valley within B.C. Their purpose was to control the flow of the Columbia River, to ensure that water would be released at the right time to coordinate power production downstream in Washington state. A secondary purpose was flood control. In return, the United States provided B.C. with $254 million to help pay for these dams.

Overall, by the early 1970s, a considerable fraction of B.C.'s rivers had been
dammed. BC Hydro engineers and executives also dreamed (and had prepared a long-term master plan spelling this out) of placing a dam on every single significant river in the province. By this time, the province appeared well on its way to achieving this goal.

What factors and priorities did this development reflect?
Most obviously, it reflected a rapidly growing demand for electricity. As industry and population in British Columbia grew, so did demand for electricity. Between the 1950s and 1970s growth in electricity demand expanded by about 8% per year, effectively doubling every 7 years.

However, these dams were more than simply sources of electricity. They served as well as a key part of the provincial economic strategy. W.A.C. Bennett, premier of B.C. between 1952 and 1972, had as his chief political goal the rapid political and economic development of his province. BC. Hydro was a key part in this, serving as not only an electrical utility, but as an instrument to encourage economic and industrial development. Bennett sought to promote resource development by developing the hydroelectric resources of the Peace and Columbia Rivers (the second and third largest rivers in B.C.).

This was not an objective shared by BC Electric, the private provincial electrical utility, which considered other sources of energy to be more cost-effective. Accordingly, Bennett nationalized BC Electric, to create BC Hydro. Its role subsequently became similar to hydro companies in other provinces, including Manitoba and Quebec -- the development of large-scale hydroelectric projects, not only as sources of electricity, but as engines of the provincial economy.

Overall, the economic importance of hydropower was seen as two-fold: the
immediate stimulus provided by the projects themselves, through thousands of construction jobs; and in addition, the provision of cheap electricity, serving as an inducement to industry (especially, energy-intensive heavy industry) considering locating in the province. (Alcan Aluminum, of course, served as a prominent illustration of this potential role of hydropower as an industrial attractant.)

But hydropower was also seen as a supplier of political power. Bennett viewed it as a means of asserting B.C.'s political autonomy relative to the rest of Canada. As a "home-grown" source of economic activity, it was viewed as lessening the province's dependence on the centres of political and economic power in eastern Canada. This was an objective Bennett was willing to achieve at any cost, as reflected, for example, in the care taken to "fudge" cost estimates of the Peace River dam, to ensure that it would be
built. Negotiation of the Columbia River Treaty, as already noted, also served this objective.

Attitudes towards the natural environment also played a significant part in shaping these views of hydro development. Rivers were seen primarily as fuel sources for the provincial economy, wasted unless turned to productive purposes. One illustration of this can be found in the writings of Bruce Hutchison, a well-known B.C. journalist. In 1950 he published The Fraser -- a detailed examination of nearly all aspects of that most important of all B.C. rivers. After reviewing the past and present state of river, its discovery,
significance to native communities, historical events such as the gold rush, the importance of salmon runs, Hutchison looked, in the last chapter, towards the future of the river:

"A river which descends from the Rockies to the coast and spills some 3,000,000,000,000 cubic feet of fresh water into the ocean every year must waste in mere motion an almost unimaginable power. It is not unimaginable to the engineers. They say the Fraser, when harnessed with dams and turbines, can give man 6,000,000 horsepower of electricity. It is probably the largest source of unused power left in the whole of North America. Not long will it remain unused." Hutchison, The Fraser (1950)

Hutchinson then went on to describe detailed plans for damming the Fraser. His account is particularly striking because throughout it there runs a hint of regret, at the probable loss of much of the natural quality and beauty of the Fraser, and the elimination of its salmon runs. At the same time, there is a pervasive assumption that dams are inevitable -- that it cannot be questioned that a river must be more valuable as a power source for industry, than as a system supporting millions of salmon:

"a government must consider the relative values of various resources. If it has to decide between a million horsepower of electricity, operating a gigantic tidewater industry, and a portion of the salmon run, its choice is obvious."

Such views epitomize, of course, the basic and powerful idea, so pervasive in the 1950s and 1960s as to barely require even debate: that a river that descends off the mountains without turning turbines is a wasted river. Turning rivers to human use becomes, in effect, a moral imperative.

In summary, then, the overlapping values and priorities can be identified that led to several decades of intense activity, building dams across several of the largest rivers in BC:

• economic, the promotion of large-scale industry in the province;
• political: Bennett's use of hydro power as a way of asserting provincial autonomy;
• moral (and perhaps most pervasive): that rivers only have value when they have been turned to human use.

Questioning the value of dams
However, while these ideas were so influential in the 1960s & 70s, at the same time, there were other ideas developing about dams. Much of these ideas were based on practical experience with dams, in BC, and elsewhere in Canada.

Part of this practical experience was the accumulated environmental record of dams. The major B.C. dams were demonstrating a range of environmental impacts. For example, Arrow Lake (an already existing lake on the Columbia River), was expanded as a result of the Columbia River Treaty. Construction of the Keenleyside Dam added about 60 feet to the height of this lake. Ever since, periodic drawdowns and refilling of the lake have resulted in elimination of the original shoreline, and periodic wide flats of dried out mud and dust storms up & down the lake. As a second example, modification of the flood
regime of the Peace River as a result of the Bennett Dam has resulted in significant changes several hundred kilometers downstream in the Peace-Athabasca Delta. In other provinces as well, from Manitoba, to Quebec, to the St. John River valley in New Brunswick, dams have generated a range of environmental consequences. The lesson often and inevitably drawn, has been that perhaps dams are not the environmentally benign
sources of power that they were once thought to be.

Another aspect of experience with hydroelectric projects during the 1970s and 1980s has been that they are often not economically sound. In part, this is because the large annual increases in electricity use experienced in the 1960s were, by the 1970s, only a memory. As a result, hydro development in B.C. slowed down greatly in the 1980s. The next planned hydro development, known as the Site C, downstream of the Bennett Dam on the Peace River, was approved in 1983. However, its construction has never gone ahead, and is now indefinitely postponed.

In strictly economic terms, Hydro projects have often turned out to not be quite the economic boons once seen. For example, Revelstoke Dam was completed in 1979, when there was no domestic demand for electricity, and only weak export markets. As a result, electricity that cost 4.2 cents/kwh to produce could only be sold for 2.4 cents/kwh. This debacle generated considerable controversy, and led to an overhaul by the province of the
process by which large projects are approved. This included the creation of the BC Utilities Commission, and a formal review process for large projects.

The social impacts of dams were also becoming more evident. Numerous
communities had been displaced by dams and their reservoirs. The native communities displaced by the Kemano project have already been noted. A few small communities were also displaced by the Bennett Dam on the Peace River, and in the Columbia River valley, communities with a total population of more than 2000 were removed. A sense of anger lasted for many years after that event.

The strongest underlying reason for this anger was the knowledge that these
communities and their surrounding environment were being degraded for the benefit of places elsewhere, either the United States (as in the case of the Columbia River Treaty), or the larger cities in B.C., especially Vancouver. In this sense, it becomes apparent how hydro power projects have continued and extended another perennial theme in Canadian history, of the resource frontier, or hinterland, being developed for the benefit of more central regions of the country. More recently, the reaction against this notion of centre and
periphery, as reflected in western Canadian resentment towards economic domination by central Canada, has also become reflected in increasing resistance to hydro projects.

This reaction has also been evident in Quebec, in the aftermath of the first phase of the James Bay project. The James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement of 1975 cleared the way for construction of the James Bay project, and gave the Cree hunting and fishing rights, control over health, education and local government, and financial compensation for relocation and development. The deal was hailed by governments as a model for future
land claims and self-government settlements. However, for the Cree it has generated considerable uncertainty, and difficult choices: between the maintenance of economic activity based on hunting, fishing and other traditional resources, or integration into the modern cash economy; between life on the land or in new settlements that resemble towns elsewhere in Canada; and between modern education systems or traditional knowledge.
The hydroelectric project itself, as well as related developments, including clear-cut logging, have generated considerable unease among the Cree about their future.

By 1990, therefore, these various issues -- the environmental impacts of hydro power, its economic implications, and its social costs -- had generated a different view of hydro development. One reflection of this was the evolving role of BC Hydro. Over the last 5 years, it has largely transformed its central function, from being primarily a construction company, always looking to the next river to be developed, to a management company, that sees conservation as a more important source of energy than additional hydro dams.

It is appropriate now to return to the Kemano power project, mentioned above. How did this new view of hydro developments shape the decisions to be made in the 1990s concerning expansion of this project? In 1979 Alcan announced that it planned to expand its power production at Kemano by 50%. It would do this by diverting more of the flow of the Nechako River. Accordingly, it entered into secret negotiations with the provincial and
federal governments, managing to prevent public involvement in these negotiations. In 1987 agreement was arrived at concerning the design of the project. This agreement specified that Alcan could reduce the flow of Nechako to only 13% of its original flow. At the same time, using a special facility to ensure cold water flows, and with proper timing, it was believed that even such a small flow would be enough to protect salmon stocks in the
Nechako. Alcan accordingly began construction in 1988.

After that date, however, debate increased rapidly, and the issue became one of the leading environmental controversies in B.C. during the early 1990s. In particular, there was considerable doubt that salmon stocks could survive such low flows. In 1990, federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans scientists charged that their own department had disregarded the advice of its own scientists, who had said that salmon would not be protected.

The immediate outcome of the controversy was a public review of the Alcan
proposal, conducted by the BC Utilities Commission. Evidence was presented at the review that suggested that it was quite likely that the salmon would indeed be strongly affected. In January 1995 the provincial government decided that the benefit of additional power did not justify the potential loss of such large salmon stocks, and announced cancellation. By this time, Alcan had partially completed the project, and compensation for
this decision is still being discussed by Alcan and the provincial and federal governments.

How, then, can this episode be interpreted? Of course, as noted above, the
decision to cancel the project can be interpreted in terms of the specific details of the project and its impacts, such as the risk it posed to salmon stocks. However, to understand this decision, it is also necessary to look beyond the specific circumstances of 1995, to examine what had been occurring over the last several decades in B.C. water development. Several factors had changed:

• Economics: large projects were no longer the economic benefit they were once thought to be.
• Relations had changed between the centre and periphery, or hinterland. The notion of sacrificing the environment and communities of a hinterland region, for the benefit of industrial and economic centres elsewhere, has arguably become less acceptable in recent decades.
• Environmental concerns, and awareness of the impacts of hydro projects, have grown enormously over the last forty years.
• A changing view of rivers: not just as plumbing to be rearranged to suit human needs, but as elements of the Canadian landscape that have their own intrinsic value, and so should not be tampered with carelessly.

Overall, it is evident that the immediate decision made in 1995 concerning Alcan's Kemano expansion project has roots that extend across several decades. This project epitomized economic, environmental, political, and ethical values and priorities prevalent during the 1950s and 1960s, but that, by the 1990s, were being questioned, even rejected. The decision to cancel the expansion project was therefore the product of not only an evaluation of its immediate benefits and costs, but of an evolution of values and priorities in B.C. during the decades since construction of the project's first phase.