It really is quite simple
This is a page from our presentation to the Township of Muskoka Lakes Council, May 16, 2011, the entire presentation is here.
We just want to know whether the project would be safe for the visiting public, whether the structure would be beautiful, and whether there would be enough scenic flow so the Bala Falls could still be called the Bala Falls.
People of all ages are drawn to the waterfalls and the natural beauty. And both would be no more if this proposed generating station was approved.
Summary
Transport Canada has not responded to questions concerning public safety.
Detail
Transport Canada is the responsible authority for many of the public’s concerns for the proposed hydro-electric generating station at the Bala Falls.
We have found that the proponent will not provide responses that answer our questions, so we have posed these directly to Transport Canada, with no response, as summarized below.
It is now over a year since asking these questions, and all we have received from Transport Canada is the one response that they would respond.
Given that the proponent hasn’t replied to these public safety concerns either, what is the public to do. The environmental assessment process includes public consultation requirements, but the proponent, Transport Canada, and the Ministry of the Environment will not respond to the public’s concerns.
Summary
Transport Canada appears to be providing approvals for which they are not qualified.
Marine navigation approval from Transport Canada is being erroneously accepted as confirmation that in-water recreational activities, such as swimming, can continue upstream of the proposed hydro-electric generating station at the Bala Falls.
Detail
For this proposed project, we understand Transport Canada’s mandate is marine navigation. For example, approving the design and location of the safety booms.
However, we understand that Transport Canada has no expertise or mandate for in-water recreational safety. This is confirmed in the second page of this e-mail from Transport Canada, where they state “Transport Canada does not have authority over swimming safety”.
Yet, we see in the second page of this letter concerning the Bala Regatta, Transport Canada states: “I have corresponded directly with the Bala Aquatic Association concerning their historic regatta and you have addressed their concerns in the ESR (2.2.5.7) and with the surface water velocity and plant flow figures (6.1, 6.2c). Their activities should be able to continue as they have planned.”
Concerning this remarkable statement from Transport Canada we note the following:
We have detailed this concern in our request to the Minister of the Environment to review the Director of the Environmental Assessment and Approvals Branch’s decision to deny the requests that this project be elevated to require an individual environmental assessment (see pages 2, 5, and 15 to 18).
People are drawn to water
The proponent would use a 10-ton jacking device to compress the dam’s stop-logs to allow only 1 m3/s of leakage flow over Bala’s north falls. Such a trickle would not draw people to Bala. The proponent would take 94% of the water through their proposed generating station, leaving only 6% for the falls.
Note that by international agreement, during days from April through October, 50% of the flow of the Niagara River must go over the falls, and the rest of the time (summer evenings and all winter), 25% of the flow must go over the falls. The rest of the flow is diverted and is shared equally between Canada and the US for power generation.
Why should scenic flow in Bala be any less important than scenic flow at Niagara Falls.
The environmental assessment process has no obligation to find the best solution for all stakeholders
The environmental assessment process is a “greedy grab” where the proponent throws consultants and paid experts into the process to see how much they can get away with.
The public is left to be on stand-by for years to respond within days when a document or report (which has been in development for months or years) is released.
There is no requirement for the process to find the best solution for a community, or even to look for some measure of balance between the needs of the community versus the developer doing as they please (that is, spending the least while taking the most).
The water and the land are public resources, yet the public has no say in how they are used. The proponent’s “public consultation” has only been them telling us what they are planning on doing.
In April 2011 the world-reknown National Geographic has published their list of the 10 Best Trips of Summer 2011 and Muskoka is number 1.
This is world-wide – Muskoka rates better than Patagonia (that would be in Argentina), Glacier Bay National Park in Alaska, and the Azores (Portugal). See the Toronto Star article.
But once people get to Muskoka, they’ll only come to Bala if there’s something to see. Muskoka is big, and there’s lots to do.
People won’t come to Bala to see dry rocks where the falls used to be. People won’t come to Bala to stand on a concrete building, feeling the vibration and listening to the drone of the 4 million watts of machinery below. They don’t want to look at a river (they can do that on the Internet), they want to touch the river.
What it unique about Bala is the falls and the natural shorelines and the water. People come to Bala to access the water, to stand on the shore, to fish, and to swim.
The proposed generating station would ruin all this. The world knows this is special, we need to protect it.
The falls are why people come to Bala.
The proponent would only allow a summer-drought flow of water throughout the year.
Even though it is required by the environmental assessment process, there has been
NO meaningful public consultation.
For all the years of this process, the proponent has frustrated the public and the process as they only repeat their evasive responses rather than answering the questions asked. We have noted this abuse of process here and here.
The proponent has not accepted any public input, the only changes have been to increase the proponent’s revenue.
We still don’t even know what the appearance of the proposed structure would be, we’re not even allowed to post our concerns (see the proponent’s “…cannot be copied…” restriction above), such as noting that the provided rendering is impossible, as it has no provision for cooling the machinery (the louvres on the front are fake as there would be the 30′-wide steel tailrace gate directly behind them).
People come to Bala to be near nature, not huge concrete generating stations.The proposed project would make most of the publically-accessible shoreline too dangerous for the public.People won