When Britain’s Privy Council ruled last month that the Canadian-backed Chalillo dam in Belize should go ahead, Fortis CEO Stanley Marshall declared victory for his company and for the people of Belize. ("Environmentalists lose battle to stop Canadian dam in Belize," January 29, 2004, www.cbc.ca)

Victory, what victory? True, Fortis narrowly escaped an injunction to stop construction of the Chalillo dam. Three out of five judges decided the Belizean government’s environmental approval of the dam was not illegal, just flawed.

But two out of the five judges wanted the project stopped. They said the dam’s environmental impact assessment, which was paid for by the Canadian International Development Agency, failed to comply with Belize’s Environmental Protection Act, and was "so flawed by important errors about the geology of the site" as to be unacceptable. They said that "Belize has enacted comprehensive legislation for environmental protection and direct foreign investment, if it has serious environmental implications, must comply with that legislation. The rule of law must not be sacrificed to foreign investment, however desirable."

Even more disturbing, the dissent noted Fortis’ failure to disclose "highly relevant" information to the Belizean courts confirming that its consultants, Toronto firm AMEC, had made a serious error that would require changes in the dam’s design.

"Not even the most protracted and determined paper chase could have got at the true facts" in this case, wrote dissenting Judge Lord Walker. One report kept under wraps for nearly two years, until just days before the Privy Council’s final hearing, warned that the Chalillo reservoir could "leak like a sieve" due to the presence of karst limestone. The report by two consulting geologists pointed to the "disastrous history of dam building" under similar conditions in neighbouring Guatemala.

Fortis failed to inform Belizeans about these risks or how it affects public safety and the dam’s final costs. One thing is certain from court documents: Belizeans, not Fortis, are on the hook if anything goes wrong. Back in 2001, Fortis signed an agreement with the Belizean government that protects the company from liability in the event that the dam fails or the reservoir leaks or construction costs double.

Even in the best-case scenario, Belizeans will be paying almost twice the market rate for Chalillo’s output, while losing one of the country’s prime tourist attractions. One in four people in Belize earn their living from nature-based tourism, the country’s leading industry.

That’s no victory for Belizeans. That’s tunnel vision and monopoly abuse by a Canadian power company. Grainne Ryder is the Policy Director for Probe International.