That was when the aluminum smelter and Kemano power station were owned by Alcan, which Rio Tinto acquired in 2007.
The Kemano hydro generating station is powered with water drawn from Tahtsa Lake and moved through a 16-kilometre tunnel that slopes down to the power station. Alcan originally planned to expand the Kemano power station with a second tunnel and additional turbines to generate additional power.
Work had already started on the second tunnel’s construction when, in 1995, the Harcourt government halted the project over concerns that drawing additional water from the Nechako River system would negatively affect salmon. At the time, Alcan said it had already spent $500 million on construction of the second tunnel when it was halted.
According to Hatch, the project’s engineering and construction management contractor, the tunnel twinning project involved excavating 7.6 kilometres under a mountain and “refurbishing”…
