User:Ebsutton/sandbox

Draft section: Creation of Kitimat
Below is a draft of the brief section we will be including on the creation of the town of Kitimat, which was a direct result of the Kenney Dam and associated aluminum smelting operations.

As a direct result of the hydroelectric development of Nechako, the townsite of Kitimat was created to house and service the future smelter workers and their families. The Alcan Property Department was responsible for the design and layout of the town, and took part in the initial construction as well. The company was careful to give Kitimat a sense of “permanence,” including substantial greenspace, to promote a stable workforce for aluminum production. However, Alcan insisted that Kitimat should not be a company town, and in 1953 the District of Kitimat became the first town without residents to be incorporated into the province. Families began to arrive in Kitimat the following year.

Revised section on Kitimat
After further discussions with our group, we thought this much information on the town's history was inappropriate given our focus on the dam itself (and the fact that there is a Wiki page devoted to Kitimat which has its own history section). So, we've decided to append a couple sentences to the "Construction" section that mention the creation of the town as an outcropping of the hydroelectric development.


 * As a direct result of the hydroelectric development of Nechako, the townsite of Kitimat was created to house and service the future smelter workers and their families. The Alcan Property Department was responsible for the design and layout of the town, and took part in the initial construction as well.

Draft section: History
Below is a draft of the sections on the selection of the dam site and dam construction. Some of the technical data in the existing Wiki article has been re-phrased and replicated here; other data will be incorporated from the article into these paragraphs. Fellow group members - could someone offer confirmation of when the dam became operational? I've read 1954 but I've also read 1952.

Selection of dam site
Following the Second World War, the Canadian government invited the Aluminum Company of Canada (Alcan) to explore the potential of various sites around the country for hydroelectric power generation. British Columbia was particularly interested in attracting the aluminum industry: Premier Byron Johnson introduced special legislation authorizing the provincial cabinet to do what it thought necessary to establish a new aluminum industry in BC. For its part, Alcan was concerned with locating its energy-intensive aluminum smelters in close proximity to an inexpensive source of hydroelectric power. In 1948, following feasibility studies, Alcan decided to pursue a project on the Nechako River to power a large aluminum smelter to be located at the new townsite of Kitimat.

Alcan’s 1950 agreement with the Province of British Columbia granted the company rights to divert water from the Nechako and Nanika Rivers, permission to dam the Nechako and divert a portion of the original flow through a tunnel to a hydroelectric facility at Kemano, and favourable water rental rates. Although the province was later criticized for “selling out” water rights to the river, public opinion poll taken in 1949 indicated that an overwhelming majority of British Columbians supported the Alcan’s plans for hydroelectric development on the Nechako.

Construction and technical specifications
Construction of the dam and its associated facilities began in 1951 and continued until 1967, although the dam became operational in 1954. The dam, located in the Canyon of the Nechako River, is a rock-filled, clay-core dam measuring 97 metres high and 457 metres wide (at the top). Construction involved over 3 million cubic metres of material. Until the W. A. C. Bennett Dam was built in the 1960s, the Kenney Dam was the largest rockfill dam in the world.

Behind the dam, the Nechako Reservoir filled from 1952 to 1957, flooding a series of lakes in the drainage basin of the upper Nechako River. The water of the reservoir filled an area of 92,000 hectares. However, the level of the reservoir can vary by more than 3 metres depending on rainfall and power generation needs.

--Ebsutton (talk) 20:17, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

Group Feedback

 * It looks good! Do you think we should only go live with the first section this week? Then we can add more to the second sections about the construction and the acquiring of land around Ootsa Lake area? Since I couldn't access your sandbox earlier I sent you an email with more information on the 1950 agreement. Also you asked about the site selection... Originally Alcan's first choice was the Chilko River and the Bute Inlet. However there were objections from politicians in the federal government because of the effects it could have on the sockeye salmon run in the Fraser. Alcan then went with their second choice, the Nechako River. --Tgreer00 (talk) 23:59, 11 March 2012 (UTC)


 * Thanks, those would be good things to incorporate! My thought is to go live with both the site selection and construction parts just because a lot of the existing information in the article pertains to the dam's technical specifications, but I can continue to refine and add more material over the next couple weeks to that part. --Ebsutton (talk) 05:35, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

Article outline
Our article outline (see below) has now been posted on the Kenney Dam talk page; it remains somewhat tentative and sections on environmental and economic impacts may be re-phrased. I will be working on the "History" section, which we have broken into three sub-sections. "Selection of the dam site" will involve background on Alcan's motivation for choosing the Nechako River and the granting of the water license by British Columbia. (Part of this section will form the 250-400 word "go live.") "Dam construction" includes an overview of the Kemano project including technical specifications of the dam (much of this information is already in the article); it is also the area where we'll describe the land area flooded and mention the consequent non-native displacement (Aboriginal dislocation was of a greater scale and was more controversial, thus meriting its own sub-section). There is already a Wikipedia entry on Kitimat, however the creation of the town was a direct result of the Kenney Dam, and therefore deserves some brief acknowledgment in the article.

Introduction [header section - includes some of the background already there]

1.0 History
 * 1.1 Selection of the dam site [including Alcan’s motivation, agreements with province]
 * 1.2 Dam construction [including technical specifications, land area flooded, non-native displacement]
 * 1.3 Creation of Kitimat

2.0 Aboriginal impacts
 * 2.1 Relocation of the Cheslatta T’En
 * 2.2 Subsequent legal action

3.0 Environmental impacts
 * 3.1 Impact on fisheries

4.0 Economic impacts
 * 4.1 Energy exports

5.0 Kemano Completion Project

--Ebsutton (talk) 23:22, 9 March 2012 (UTC)