!

Harness the Fraser ?
A People’s government
would do it

t1emmmenBY HAL GRIFFIN

RITISH Columbia could have -

the biggest single hydro-
electric power development in
the world. It would be bigger
than the Grand Coulee, produce
more power than the projected
St. Lawrence Seaway develop-
ment and have a greater poten-
tial than even the huge Kuiby-
shev project now under con-
struction in the Soviet Union.

And the estimated cost of this
development would be around half
a billion dollars, less than one
third of the amount the federal
government spent for military
purposes in 1951. :

. For decades engineers have

_ dreamed of harnessing the waters
of the Fraser. Possible dam sites
have been examined, the water
flow measured, the topography of
the country studied for water stor-
age and diversion. Various plans
have been brought forward, dis-
‘cussed in terms of the distant
future and then shelved. Private
enterprise, concerned with im-
mediate profits,. was not interest-
ed in a development of such
magnitude.

Now, suddenly, American mon-

opolists are looking northward to
Canada’s unexploited resources to
Satisfy the’: needs.

This has a direct bearing on the
paper recently presented to the
Fifth British Columbia Natural
Resources Conference at Victoria
by Professor Harry V. Warren of
the University of British Colum-
bia.

Outlining his plan for develop-

_ ing the Fraser River from source
to mouth, he spoke as the dream-
er. “The wise exploitation of the
Fraser River,” he said, “represents
one of the greatest and most
thrilling hazards that lie ahead.”
But the arguments he adduced to

. Support his dream were those of

the Colombo Plan and the North
Atlantic ‘Treaty Organization.
“Only if it can be shown beyond:
all reasonable doubt that this area
is one of the best available for a

_ great atomic centre will we be able

to count on the support of our
neighbor to the south and our
Other allies,’ he observed.

Yet Warren’s dream of harnes-
sing the Fraser, divested of its
false argumentation, has a tre-
mendous significance for the peo-

. Ple of this province.

@
At Moran, in the rugged can-
yons of the Fraser a scant few
miles north of Lillooet, is perhaps
the greatest potential power site
in the country. Even to regular
travellers on the Pacific Great
Eastern Railway, it is no more than
a name — but ‘a name with a
destiny. ;
A dam built here could develop
between three and four million
horsepower, three times the pre-
Sent developed horsepower of all
B.C. hydro-electric plants and
equal to a quarter of Canada’s en-
tire developed hydro-electric pow-
er. This would be at least half as
Much again as the 1.9 million
horsepower of the Grand Coulee,
Perhaps twice as much, and more
than the estimated 2 million horse-
Power to be developed by the Kui-
byshev dam on the Volga, which
Will be the greatest hydro-electric
devlopment in the world when it
Is completed.

_Warren’s plan envisages a uni-
fied development that will trans-

form the Fraser along its entire
length.

The first dam, 130 feet high,
would be at historic Lillooet. The
second, towering -720 feet above
water level and close to 800 feet
high from base to crest, would be
at Moran. The lake backed up be-
hind the Moran dam, with a use-
ful storage capacity of some 15
million acre feet, would stretch
160 miles north to Quesnel. And
the third dam, above Quesnel at
Cottonwood, would create behind
its 250 feet of concrete a second
lake stretching to Prince George.

To provide additional storage
capacity there would be a 24-foot
storage dam at Stuart Lake into
which the waters of Babine Lake
would be fed through a five-mile
tunnel. There would be other
storage dams at Quesnel Lake, at
Isle Pierre on the Nechako River
west of Prince George and at Sin-
clair Mills on the Fraser east of
Prince George. :

Nor does Warren’s dream of
what could be end there. He speaks
of changing the northward course
of the Peace, Parsnip and Findlay
rivers and diverting them into the
Fraser at Prince George. “Fantas-
tic though these last possibilities
may appear they are probably no
more impossible than the diverting
of portions of the Colorado to the
Missouri,’ he remarks.

Fantastic? Wihen the Soviets
have just linked the Volga and
the Don through the 63-mile Lenin
Canal.

e@

The Fraser River project that
Warren envisages could transform
north-central British Columbia.
from a wilderness into an indus-
trial region supported by a thriv-
ing agriculture.

It could make possible estab-
lishment. of an aluminum industry
on Howe Sound. ;

An iron and steel industry could
be developed at the ‘Coast. Warren
speculates on the possibility of pur-
chasing iron ore from Celebes in
the Bast Indies as a major source
of supply. Ley

The coal deposits at Hat Creek,
variously estimated at 15 to 200
million tons, could. be exploited,
perhaps ‘as the basis of a chemical
industry.

Between 25,000 and 50,000 acres
of arid land could be irrigated and
pht into production of some 12
million more pounds of beef a
year. ‘

Damming of the Fraser would
end the threat of floods such .as
devastated farmlands in the low-
er Fraser Valley in 1948, costing
$12 million in dyke repairs alone.
Half a million dollars a year
would be saved in dyke mainten-
ance and another million dollars
in dredging costs.

The Fraser could be made nav-
igable for deepsea ships beyond
Chilliwack.

Warren sees many . practical
problems to {be solved before his
scheme can proceed, and _ the
largest of them is saving the sal-
mon fisheries. But, he says, “if
we assume that some day, and in

the not too distant future, a dam
shall be built at Moran, I am con-
‘fident that given the money, our
fishery and engineering experts
can find a way of surmountingtthe
resulting difficulties which admit-
tedly today appear all but insur-
mountable.”

e

That is the dream.
the reality?

The reality is that (Canada has
the resources, the technical know-
ledge, the engineers and the work-
ers capable of undertaking such

a development. In fact, it has
everything except a government
with the vision and will to develop
the country’s resources for the

But what is

- people.

Warren had barely given his
paper when the Spokane Spokes-
man-Review revealed that U.S.

.

interests were contemplating
building a chain of Canadian
steam-power plants, using Alberta
coal, to furnish electric power to

- industries in the U.S. Northwest.

The project, which has already
been discussed with the Canadian
government, would cost $1,800,000
over a span of i40 years.

Would the present federal gov-
ernment, following a policy of
supplying Canadian natural re
sources and raw materials to Am-
erican industry, develop a Fraser
River hydro-electric project for
the Canadian people or would it

hand this great source of power
over to U.S. interests as it has al-
ready handed over the iron ore of
Quebec and Labrador?

Warren, caught up in his cold
war illusions, suggests using Cele-
bes iron ore for a steel industry

®

“VANCOUVER

Se ne

“markets across the Pacific.

in B.C., “giving purchasing power
to southwest Asia” and carrying
out the purposes of the Colombo
Plan. He talks of potentially great
But
the reality is that our present gov-.
ernment refuses to trade with
People’s China. The reality is that
the peoples of Asia see their fu~
ture in using their resources to de-
velop their own industries.

Our future as a people begins
at home. developing our resources
for peaceful ends, trading with
all countries on a basis of equality.
The dream of harnessing the Fra-
ser can become a reality — but
only when we send to Ottawa men
who share our dream of making
Canada great for her people.

The Vancouver Sun ran this map to illustra te its report of UBC Professor Harry V. Warren's

paper.

It ended its story with a question, “When? and answered with the never-never conclusion,

“When markets, the supply of money and the initia tive and determination of Canadian business or the
Canadian government make it happen.”

PACIFIC TRIBUNE — NOVEMBER 7, 1952 — PAGE 9