Nov 052015
 

Section 6.2.4 of the proponent’s 2012 Addendum states: “Public access to some areas around the proposed facility will be restricted, as shown in Figure 6.4, due to safety concerns.” As shown by the yellow-shaded areas of the section of the proponent’s Figure 6.4 below (click on it for a larger view), the restricted areas are only those within the upstream and downstream safety booms.

Also, the proponent acknowledges that in the vicinity of the proposed project site there are: “a range of recreational activities such as aquatic sports (boating, fishing, swimming) and snowmobiling” and “Lake Muskoka (upstream of North Bala Dam) and Moon River (downstream of North Bala Dam) are popular boating, swimming, scuba diving and recreational fishing areas” (Environmental Screening/Review report Sections 2.2.4.1 and 2.2.5.10). The proponent is therefore claiming that these activities can safely continue outside of the yellow-shaded areas.

However, as the proponent’s own upstream and downstream flow simulations (overlaid on a satellite photograph) below show, the water velocities would be just as fast (and dangerous) outside of the safety boom areas as within.

Further, as detailed here, Transport Canada’s method of calculation shows that the construction of the proposed generating station would require that the upstream safety boom be relocated farther upstream.

Indeed, as detailed here, hydro-electric generating stations are never built in the middle of an in-water recreational area.

It is clear that in-water recreational activities would not be safe even outside of the safety booms.

 Leave a Reply

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>