Letter to the Editor
Dear Mr. Vance,
During the Virtual Open House on July 22, and in your editorial published on July 30, The End of DND’s Commenting Period Could be Just the Beginning, you asked how homeowners “could ever feel safe living below the location of the proposed reservoir.”
We recognize that this is an important topic to the citizens of Meaford. We accept our responsibility to make sure that we can demonstrate that if we build the Pumped Storage Project, it will be designed to keep residents safe and subsequently built, maintained and operated safely for as long as it remains in service.
What we are proposing is not without precedent. There are over 15,000 dams in Canada and 121 large dams in Ontario. There are two pumped storage facilities with reservoirs in Niagara, one on the Canadian side and one on the American side, that have operated safely for decades. Canada and Ontario have a long and safe history with dam construction and operation. The term ‘hydro’ in Ontario is often synonymous with electricity. It’s how the province began generating electricity and today electricity generated in hydro facilities represents about a quarter of all of the electricity we consume in this province.
With this in mind, let me offer the following assurances: the upper reservoir for the proposed Pumped Storage Project is a civil structure similar to a bridge or building that will be designed, constructed, maintained and operated in accordance with best practices and regulations found within Ontario and from around the world. There are specific legislated and regulatory requirements in Ontario and in Canada for the safety review, construction, operation, maintenance and decommissioning of dams. Our facility will need to meet or exceed all applicable regulations, including seismic considerations, to ensure safety before the project is approved for construction.
In developing the Pumped Storage Project, we will engage qualified and experienced engineers to design the facility and we will similarly construct the facility with contractors who have experience building hydro facilities.
Additionally, there are important material differences between this project and a ‘typical’ hydro facility. The first is that the reservoir is not fed by an upstream natural body of water and thus is not subject to extreme flooding from precipitation. And, with around-the-clock on-site staff, the maximum flooding event in this area can be managed by running the facility at full output for a few minutes, directing water from the reservoir to be returned via underground tunnels back to Georgian Bay.
As well, to ensure the reservoir cannot be overfilled, we have incorporated several world-class safety measures into the design, including:
Multiple and independent overfill protection systems to stop operation of the pumps; and
Primary and secondary fail-safe overflows to permit a controlled overflow in the unlikely event that all overflow prevention systems fail.
We know we can design, build, operate and maintain a safe reservoir and we want to prove it to you. We intend to meet with those wishing to learn more about this aspect of the project to share our design process, the requirements we must meet, and get their input on how we can demonstrate that the proposed facility will be safe. Our goal is to demonstrate that safety is our number one value at TC Energy and that we care about the safety of you, your family and your home.
John Mikkelsen, P.Eng., M.A.Sc.
Director, Power Business Development
TC Energy
