Even before the effective date of the Tla’amin Treaty in April, the nation has announced that it hopes to become a power in the Powell River region.

In early January, the Sliammon Development Corporation (SDC) said it was looking at generating power from a turbine placed in Sliammon Creek. In an initiative that could bring both jobs and revenue to the nation, the plan could see a dam being built at Sliammon Lake that feeds the creek.

Erik Blaney

“We’ve been wanting to fix that dam for at least five years,” said SDC president Erik Blaney. He said that in addition to generating power “We think we can hold back quite a bit of water and it will help us through the summer droughts as well as when fish start to arrive in the creek.

“The run-of-river hydro will really be a bonus,” he said. “A turbine location downstream from the dam, probably about 1 km or so away from our hatchery, means we will be able to manage the flows better through the hatchery.”

A flood one year ago damaged the Sliammon hatchery

The hatchery suffered serious damage last winter when flooding wiped out infrastructure and killed thousands of salmon eggs.

Blaney explained that the project was no spur-of-the-moment thing. “We did a climate change adaption study a few years back and realized that we’re going to have quite a lot more summer droughts and we’re going to need a lot more water in storage for the community as well as for fish.

“We even broke the climate change model down to a watershed level. That’s the first time that has ever been done. It is something that may apply to other rivers and valleys throughout our region.

He said the coming years and decades will bring great change in the climate. In an era of uncertainty, Blaney is sure that “there’s going to be less snowpack and more flooding and more drought. It’s going to be drier, but when it’s wet, there will be torrential downpours falling instead of snow. So, we’ll see lots of washouts… massive changes.”

An increased water supply would also allow the nation to build much-needed housing and other developments as Tla’amin becomes self-governing and moves away from the Indian Act.

Chief treaty negotiator Roy Francis told the Powell River Peak newspaper that: “Power generation at Sliammon Lake is a good example of a newly developing business project for us,” adding that it is a strategic priority for the nation to create more jobs supporting young people through their post-secondary education.

The planned five-megawatt project would connect to the BC Hydro electrical grid. A major transmission line already travels through Sliammon territory. It links run-of river projects in Klahoose First Nation territory in the Toba Valley to the province’s main power grid.