SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - Public hearings into a $6.6 billion hydro-electric project on the Peace River in British Columbia are still a year away, but the Northwest Territories and Alberta are giving notice that they will take a hard line on future use of Mackenzie River basin water.

Known as Site C, the 900 megawatt dam and generator has been on BC Hydro's planning books for 30 years. In April the project received preliminary approval from the British Columbia government. BC Hydro has allotted two years for a public review and wants to begin construction in 2013 to deliver electricity by 2020.

Of no less concern to the GNWT are impacts from a run-of-river hydroelectric project proposed for the Slave River, ever-growing demand from Alberta oil sands developers for water, and industrial pollution of the Athabasca River.

In staking out its plan for the future, the territorial government is looking to its own water strategy and the Mackenzie River Basin trans-boundary agreement that governments have mostly ignored since it was introduced in 1997 as a guideline for water management.

The agreement proposed that signatories would manage their water, provided it "does not unreasonably harm the integrity of the aquatic ecosystem in any other jurisdiction." Disputes were to be resolved "in a co-operative and harmonious manner." Only Yukon and the Northwest Territories signed on.

"We're saying for this to work for all of us we all need legally-binding agreements that will be clear, detailed and enforceable," Environment Minister Michael Miltenberger said in an interview.

"There is some urgency now to get this done before Site C proceeds, so that the trans-boundary agreement is reflected and considered by the folks looking at Site C. All the details would be covered so that as the review proceeds we are more than an intervener; we are a downstream jurisdiction that has legal considerations that have to be addressed.

"This is no longer just a case of B.C. being able to move ahead and say 'in case your interested, we're building another dam.' Things have changed dramatically since the days of the Bennett dam and everybody stood quietly by and wondered what happened to the Peace-Athabasca Delta."

BC Hydro says because Site C will use water stored by the Bennett dam, its downstream impact will be minimal, but Miltenberger contends that water projects "can't be assessed in isolation, but must be considered among the cumulative impacts on the Mackenzie basin."

"We're making the case that first and foremost we have to determine how much water does the land need - just to maintain itself, before we consider human needs," said Miltenberger. "That's our first discussion."

Miltenberger said he will begin a series of meetings this month with Alberta and British Columbia ministers aimed at producing agreements on how to manage the river. "They will all have to make sense and they will all have to be linked together," he said.

"We will put some effort into the environmental hearings, but more important to us is the political process we're now engaged in at the highest levels to get the process started to negotiate a really binding trans-boundary agreement. That's the key piece."

Carrie Sancartier, a spokesperson for Alberta Environment, said the province agrees legally-binding agreements between all three jurisdictions should be in place before hearings into Site C begin."

Western Arctic MP Dennis Bevington said Miltenberger will need Alberta's active support. "If two downstream users are saying there will be no dam because we don't trust how you will run it, I think that would be a pretty strong appeal to any environmental review board, the MP said.

"B.C. has nothing to be proud of, given the impact from the Bennett dam," said Bevington. "The impacts are made worse by the way it's operated, to produce more electricity. There has to be some understanding that that is not the only value to be used."

Bevington worked on the Northern River Basins study, the precursor to the basin-wide trans-boundary agreement. "

"I think there's almost a need for a trilateral agreement on the Peace River. The three jurisdictions are so linked in terms of impacts from dams," said Bevington.

A legally-binding agreement between Alberta and the Territories may prove elusive. Communities downstream from the oil sands have repeatedly raised concerns over declining water levels, pollution and impacts on their health and way of life, only to have them disputed by industry and the Alberta government.

A study that updates earlier research reports on water and sediments in the Slave River may resolve those arguments. Commissioned by Indian and Northern Affairs Canada, the study results were expected two years ago and are now due for release in December.

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