BC Hydro is touting results of a new poll this morning saying support of the Site C project has gained momentum across the province, but BC residents don’t appear to side one way or the other on how to meet future hydro needs.

The telephone survey of 1,038 people by Abacus Data released Tuesday found that 59 per cent of British Columbians support the construction of the $8+billion dam, with only 17 % of those surveyed opposed.

An additional 22 % said they would “accept” construction under certain circumstances, according to the results, though those circumstances were not clearly defined.

Looking at it regionally, the survey included 303 people from the north and northeastern portion of the British Columbia.

 Abacus claims the regional support for the dam’s construction is much of the same — just 51 per cent support building the Site C Dam, with 26 per cent opposed to building the Site C Dam.  Another 22 per cent said they would accept the dam’s construction conditionally providing it met certain criteria, which was not clearly defined.

The telephone survey was conducted between June 10 and 19, and has a margin of the error of 3.9 per cent.

The Polls results also suggests that 92 per cent of people surveyed agreed demand for electricity in the province will increase in the coming years but they were unclear on how much that increase would be.

According to the poll, 75 per cent supported adding a new hydro dam and generating station to meet those needs.

However, another 75 per cent supported buying more power from independent power producers operating smaller wind and run-of-river hydro projects.

Another 64 per cent supported building more natural gas power plants.

So the popularity according to the Poll has increased and it could be said that the majority of BC Residents are in favour of it.