Thread: my engineer friend & I compare BC Hydro's vague photos of its construction of cofferdams with independent photos.(Cofferdams are secondary dams to divert the Peace River into tunnels & away from the work site so the #SiteC dam can be built)
What does this photo from @sitecproject's tweet actually show? Engineer: "Pretty obvious Hydro's photo is useless..that's not clearly related to a cofferdam. They should be embarrassed to show that." Is the only purpose of this photo to minimize the sheer size of the Peace River?
@sitecproject Here are 2 aerial photos of same area at #Site, taken by a local pilot friend: "Hydro's photo would've been taken from the centre right on the south bank about where that excavator is sitting. Start of cofferdam is the little finger in the river which the river is washing away. "
@sitecproject Note: the twin #SiteC river diversion tunnels are in an arc inside the North bank of the Peace River. You can see the upstream entrances to these tunnels in photos here, and in this previous thread.
@sitecproject Now, some remarks and questions re: what we can see of these #SiteC cofferdams so far from these overhead shots, which are about the only way we can see what's being done at #SiteC. Props to this pilot! Because @bchydro can't BS its way out of these photos.
@sitecproject@bchydro Engineer: "That little "finger" in the aerial shot is made with large rocks, with a dozer pushing them into the river to start the cofferdam. The previous BC Hydro photo shows something entirely different...don't have a clue what it is, and can't see any large rocks." Compare:
@bchydro ..Engineer: "They can add to those rocks & try to make the cofferdam much wider and stronger. But I don't know what is inside - if there's anything to seal it - but that's the start of the upstream cofferdam. But no way they'll get anywhere with the river flowing like it is now."
@bchydro "Why didn't the upstream coffer dam start further upstream, curved to smoothly turn the river toward tunnel entrances? That'd help w/ the momentum problem. Now it starts just downstream of the entrances creating a pocket, making it more likely the river'll overtop the cofferdam"
@bchydro ..Did this location of the upstream cofferdam result "from thinking the river flow would be close to zero, and this was more convenient or shorter, with no significant river flow to deal with"? But the river is in full flood now, due to unusually heavy rains.
@bchydro For whatever reason, "Hydro didn't react to the changing river dynamics from all that unexpected rain. The Peace has a relatively steep gradient here which keeps the speed up, and it's a very large volume of water. They can't proceed as if this very high river isn't there."
@bchydro The next musings from my engineer friend are quite long so I've screenshot them. He wants to emphasize he's just a concerned onlooker asking Qs, & has no information about BC Hydro's #SiteC design thinking is (and BC Hydro's ongoing opacity here is part of the problem). #bcpoli
@bchydro Interestingly, another contact just messaged me in response to this thread. He is very experienced in construction & knows the Peace region. He's talking about contractors here, partly where ballooning costs come in when you're fighting a losing battle with nature. #SiteC#bcpoli
@bchydro I could go on but I'll just end with this apt point from @billsqueegee on BC Hydro's and @sitecproject's vague communication-by-twitter vs. their TWO overdue quarterly #SiteC reports. If anyone has questions for me or my sources, just ask.
@bchydro@billsqueegee@sitecproject One PS from engineer: As your construction friend says, the cofferdam must be solidly built. That means a large, wide-tracked crane that is assembled on shore and will work its way along the cofferdam...
@bchydro@billsqueegee@sitecproject .."Any soft spot, or one weakened by the water, will be a disaster... and driving piles is similar to a small earthquake from the shockwave of the heavy diesel-powered hammer hitting the pile and propelling itself upward." And we already know the shale at #SiteC is unstable.
@bchydro@billsqueegee@sitecproject ICYMI: even back in 2017 BC Hydro knew it wouldn't make its Sept. 2019 river diversion deadline due to geotechnical problems, meaning extra billions. And that was BEFORE the extra $2bn @jjhorgan announced when he passed the dam! Now Hydro'll miss 2020 too. alaskahighwaynews.ca/site-c/site-c-…
@bchydro@billsqueegee@sitecproject@jjhorgan Hydro will no doubt blame missing the #SiteC river diversion this year on historic water levels. But that’s a trap for them, because it'll betray the fact that BC govt & BC Hydro made #SiteC plans without taking long-predicted, climate change-caused weather havoc into account.
@bchydro@billsqueegee@sitecproject@jjhorgan@PRHydroPartners@BruceRalston ..Oh look! Today the #SiteC PR team feels the need to tell us that all's well with the cofferdams & river diversion. Friend in construction up in the Peace responds to their photo: "Any lower a camera angle and it would look like they are already across."
@bchydro@billsqueegee@sitecproject@jjhorgan@PRHydroPartners@BruceRalston ..So now we wait to see if Hydro, working night & day, can divert the Peace R. into tunnels this Sept. Locals say #SiteC is lit up at night like a city. Per megawatt this is now costing far more than if we'd picked geothermal & wind. Instead, our money flows faster than the river
Quite a bizarre performance by BC Conservatives leader John Rustad on CBC Radio today. For a populist demagogue he's very wooden - he just kept repeating “we have to get rid of the BC NDP with their radical agenda/policies” over & over, like a broken droid. 1/x #bcpoli
Frustratingly CBC's @BellePuri never asked Rustad which BC NDP policies he thinks are "radical." The BC NDP are so captured by the corporations at the trough - arguably more than the BC Liberals before them - that I'd be astonished to find anything really "radical" there...
@BellePuri The only difference is that the BC NDP are doing right-wing corporate capture with a veneer of rainbow crosswalks, while the Cons are corporate capture with social conservatism & toxic masculinity. Which flavour do you want your trickle-up of wealth to come in?
Important WSJ article on Canada's rivers drying up while we keep building dams anyway, including #SiteC. It's paywalled so I'll include the whole article in this 🧵
Diversify into renewables now! BC can't until it ditches the deceptively named Clean Energy Act.#bcpoli #cdnpoli
Had Bing Thom not died prematurely, he would have gone after @AIBCconnected for its gentleman's agreement rule that architects can't criticize other projects. Reportedly a certain major arch'l firm in Vancouver reported Bing to AIBC for his letter opposing #105Keefer. #vanpoli
@AIBCconnected Bing Thom intended to go after AIBC's muzzling rule & publicly ask them:
"What is the point of architecture if there's no discourse? What is the role of the architect in society? Do we have a public responsibility or are we just hired guns?"
@AIBCconnected Bing's death was a terrible loss for public discourse in Vancouver. BTW he also helped us with a fight I co-founded against the proposed downtown casino expansion (we beat the expansion partly thx to him). You could count on him to do the right thing. AIBC tries to block this.
My elderly family member, whom I kept free of Covid for 3+ years but who finally caught in in an unmasked BC hospital last week, is very sick on Day 9. Rapid test still shows a bright red line. For health issues she can't take Paxlovid. She's in a rage at you, @adriandix. #bcpoli
@adriandix "I'm furious at the hospital and at all the unmasked healthcare workers, but I'm more outraged by @adriandix and Bonnie Henry. The govt is ultimately to blame."
@adriandix She asks: "Why aren't they following science?"
"They kept taking my mask off for tests and procedures - and they weren't even wearing masks when they did it."
I’m a rural BC hospital taking an elderly relative to ER. No masks on staff & visitors but aggressive efforts to make everyone sanitize their hands, despite the fact that the diseases helping to crash the health system are airborne. We are truly living in an age of disinformation
*I’m IN a rural BC hospital. I am not a hospital. But you got that
Look at the handwashing fixation of @IPACCanada & the blindness to airborne transmission & masking stretching back many years. Every year they suggest infection control is largely a handwashing issue. It's as if all the airborne diseases do not exist. Why?
@BCGreens@SoniaFurstenau Here's the timeline of John Horgan's involvement with Teck Resources before he left office. Judge for yourself:
In Dec 2021 the feds indicated they were considering referring Teck's selenium pollution in the Elk Valley to the internat'l joint commission (IJC) #bcpoli
@BCGreens@SoniaFurstenau Feds became involved because Teck's selenium pollution was a longstanding issue. (Recall the fines)
March 2022 Teck lobbied the feds asking that the Elk Valley pollution not be referred to the IJC.
April 12 Teck lobbied Horgan's Chief of Staff & deputy mins of Env & Energy+Mines