A multiple-criteria group decision support system for risk reduction and community resilience in the fraser lowlands eco-region

As population pressures and energy demands continue to mount on both sides of the Canada-US border, advances in group decision making can help to enhance power plant selection and siting processes, to mitigate hazards, and to promote more sustainable and resilient societies. Multiple-criteria, multiple-participant decision making strategies are used herein to investigate a number of critical trans-border energy, social, and environmental issues including co-management of a shared airshed in the Fraser lowlands eco-region. Sumas Energy 2 (SE2), a contentious power plant project proposed for the US side of the international border between the city of Abbotsford, British Columbia and town of Sumas, Washington is considered. We provide a geographic and historic overview of the Fraser lowlands eco-region region followed by an outline of events related to the regulation of the controversial SE2 project. A decision support system is developed to automate the Nemawashi decision process, which involves a coordinator seeking to achieve group consensus. The recommended power plant decision alternative involved not constructing the SE2 power plant facility. This coincides with the real-world outcome of the conflict: opposed by the Canadian courts and the National Energy Board (NEB), the Kirkland, Washington-based National Energy Systems Corporation (NESCO) formally withdrew its proposed plan in 2006.