Letter to the Editor
To the Editor,
The Canadian Dam Association was referenced in Louise Buccella’s letter to Minister John Yakabushi, published on Sept. 25. It appears there may have been some misunderstanding of the information that we had shared with Ms. Buccella.
The CDA does not have an opinion on the pumped storage facility proposed for the Meaford area. We can only speak about dams in general.
• The CDA is not in a position to know if a similar facility has been built upstream of a community anywhere in the world. We advised Ms. Buccella that her team might want to do research to see if there are comparable situations.
• It is a general principle that the owner of a dam is liable if the dam fails. We are not in a position to know about the liability in the specific case of TCE Energy and the Meaford proposal.
• CDA did observe that dams do fail; it is extremely rare in Canada but it does happen. The examples provided by Ms. Buccella do not appear to be related to pumped storage facilities but are from dams on waterways, and the reservoirs did not always serve hydroelectric power stations.
I hope that these clarifications are useful. More information on the Canadian Dam Association can be founded at www.cda.ca.
Don Butcher
Executive Director, Canadian Dam Association
