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VICTORIA — Tucked into the back pages of the B.C. Utilities Commission review of Site C is an intriguing discussion of a replacement source of electricity that wouldn’t require B.C. to build anything.

The option, laid out in a seven page annex, would see B.C. reclaim its entitlement to a share of the power generated on the US side of the border under the 50-year-old Columbia River Treaty.

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Essentially, B.C. (standing in for Canada) agreed to build a series of dams on our side of the border to manage volatile water flows on the Columbia River.

In return, the province was granted 50 per cent of the additional power generated from smoother year-round flows of water through hydroelectric dams operated by the Bonneville Power administration on the US side.

Those downstream benefits roughly equal the output of Site C. They are currently being sold on the US market at depressed prices, there being a glut of subsidized green energy in Washington and Oregon.