Workforce numbers trend down as Site C nears completion
Project on schedule, on budget says BC Hydro
Now that the Site C dam, located on the Peace River between Hudson’s Hope and Taylor near the Old Fort, is almost finished, various parts of the project are winding down, which means a reduction in workforce numbers.
BC Hydro’s Kate O’Neil and Ben Rauscher discussed the project with members of the Fort St. John and District Chamber of Commerce at the January luncheon meeting.
According to O’Neil, the 1100MW dam, which will be able to supply energy sufficient for 450,000 homes or 1.7 million EV’s, is 85 percent complete.
“To date BC Hydro has committed and spent $12.4 billion of the $16 billion approved budget, and we are on time and on budget,” said O’Neil.
While most of the large procurements have already occurred, O’Neil says there are a few remaining small procurements to be awarded this spring. Since only smaller projects, and the completion of the larger ones, are all that is left to finish the project which has been providing hundreds of jobs in the Peace Region for nearly ten years, employment numbers will be gradually reduced in the coming months.
BC Hydro’s main areas of focus for the coming year include completing the riprap placement at the approach channel; completing mechanical work for the spillway gates; and completing the permanent fishway, which will allow fish to go upstream to spawn through the fish passage.
“Of course, we’re continuing to work to install the six generating units in the powerhouse, and all the related components. Stringing the transmission – we’ve got three transmission towers, we need to string the 1km each of the 500KV transmission line to connect it to the power station and the Site C substation, to put it into the grid,” said O’Neil.
As for employment, the most recent numbers available from BC Hydro are from November 2023, when the project had 4,302 workers, with 69 percent, or 2,987, of those from British Columbia. Of the BC workers, 828 or 24 percent come from the Peace River Regional District.
The following Trend Graph shows employment numbers at Site C from November 2022 to November 2023.
“Workforce numbers always drop as we go through summer and into the winter construction season, but now that we’ve completed several of the construction work fronts, the numbers are beginning to decline,” O’Neil explained.
“The mauve line [which represents PRRD workers] stays fairly flat throughout the life of the construction, that has maintained anywhere between 19–24 percent of the workforce,” she said.
O’Neil said that Site C reached peak employment in June 2023, with 6,669 people, and in July, one million worker hours. Much of that employment was due to work being carried out on the powerhouse.
Employment at the dam will continue to decline as the construction is completed. When the dam is complete, it will take about 35 people to run it, O’Neil said.
Construction continues with mechanical work on the spillway gates – there are two types of spillways, mechanical spillways and passive or auxiliary spillways. The passive spillways are necessary in the event of a loss of power to the two mechanical spillways.
“We need to install the flexible coupling collars on the penstocks, to complete penstock construction. The six turbine units inside the powerhouse are in varying stages of construction, and the tailrace is complete,” O’Neil said.
In October, the first of the three transmission towers were installed, on penstock unit 1. The remaining two towers will be installed on penstock units 3 and 5, O’Neil explained.
In addition to the dam itself, work continues on recreational projects along what will become the reservoir in 2024.
“We’ve had substantial completion of the both the Halfway and Lynx Creek boat launches in 2023, there’s still some outstanding work that needs to be done,” said Ben Rauscher. Both are double-wide boat ramps. At the Halfway site, the access road and footprint of the parking are largely completed, the day-use area will be completed this year.
Upgrades are being done to at Hudson’s Hope, to the DA Thomas Road and recreation area.
“Whole road will be upgraded fully, and a full access road is going to lead down to the berm that was constructed at Hudson’s Hope and there will be a day-use area with picnic tables and fire rings, and a small craft boat launch such as kayaks and canoes,” said Rauscher.
This project will be coordinated into one project with the Halfway and Lynx Creek boat launches and will be open to the public as soon as possible. BC Hydro will maintain all the new recreation areas through a local contract.
“Boat launches themselves will not be open until such time as the reservoir has been deemed safe for navigation,” he said, approximately one year post reservoir fill.
Reservoir filling is expected to begin in August 2024, and takes four months. Once the reservoir is filled, there will be a boom and markers to let boaters know the limit of approach to the dam, much like at Williston and Dinosaur Lakes.
Despite the drought, O’Neil says that reservoir filling will proceed as scheduled, even if the drought continues through 2024, because of the dam’s minimum flow requirements. The Peace Canyon dam’s minimum is 283 cubic metres/second. Site C’s will be 390, and in the past few months during the drought O’Neil says the flow has been approximately 400 cubic metres/second.
“In terms of our minimum flows, filling the reservoir doesn’t depend on having extra water, it depends on regular flows that we use to generate. The reservoir will be able to be filled because we flow at our minimums,” she said.
“Over the last several months because of the drought you may have noticed low flows. In reality, low flows will continue, we have our minimums and maximums that we’re required to maintain. And we live within that bandwidth from the low to the high.”
As part of BC Hydro’s ongoing environmental assessment, O’Neil said that there will be a variety of monitoring methods used to keep an eye on possible sloughing and erosion of the banks of the reservoir.
“Lots of sensors have been placed to assist with the monitoring, there will be visual monitoring on an ongoing basis, certainly when we speak about the post-fill, there’s many monitoring processes in place to make sure the reservoir will be safe to use, and we can open it.”
The historic nature of where slides have occurred along the river has been recognized and built into many of the features, including how the bridges were designed and built, and the impact of landslide generated waves.
“Those are all very much part of the design systems of the dam itself and all the infrastructure of the reservoir.”