Hydro power at whose expense?

"We're connected, whether we like it or not."

By Josiah Neufeld  |  ChristianWeek Staff

"We will not be beggars in our own land," says Victor Spence, manager of future development for Tataskweyak Cree Nation. PHOTO: JOSIAH NEUFELD

WINNIPEG, MB—The beasts came on barges. Ten years old and terrified, Ellen Cook watched the metal monsters with earth-gnawing jaws drift past her home on the banks of the Saskatchewan River.

"We were scared when we first saw them," she says.

In 1960 the community of Grand Rapids was home to about 500 Cree. Every summer, Cook's family loaded up their 25-foot yawl and headed upstream through the wild rapids to their summer camping and fishing grounds.

Cook remembers when scouts from Manitoba Hydro recruited her father—a skilled boatman—to take them up the river. "I was thinking they were just going to admire these rapids and be awestruck by the power they had," says Cook.

That current now courses through a web of wires to homes throughout Manitoba. The rapids have been replaced by a 3,500 square kilometre lake held back by a dam. The dam funnels water through four turbines that spin off electricity at a rate of 472 megawatts. As the lake's waters rise and fall according the wishes of dam operators, the bleached bodies of submerged trees wash ashore clotting the sagging banks so thickly they can be seen like a rim of scum in satellite photos.

"There's still a lot of anger," says Cook, a grandmother now, who lives in Saint Francois Xavier and teaches Grade 6 at Champlain School in Winnipeg. She holds Hydro responsible for much sorrow in her life.

An influx of construction workers quadrupled her town's population in the 1960s. To satisfy their thirsts came a bar and an undercover brothel. Cook says some girls she knew, were raped by camp workers.

When the generating station was complete, 1,157 square kilometres of the forest in which her people had hunted and trapped for generations was under water; two communities were forced to relocate or be drowned.

Cedar Lake became a giant reservoir, treacherous for boaters in summer because of floating deadheads and deadly for ski-doos in winter. Snowmobiling across the lake the year he turned 32, Cook's brother broke through rotten ice covering a hidden water channel. When his body was recovered, his fingernails were gone—torn off by frantic scrabbling on the ice.

Cook also blames the dam for the appearance of new cancers in the community. In the space of two years, three of her uncles died of cancer. Her father, a traditional man who shunned processed foods and "lived on fish and moosemeat" died of pancreatic cancer at age 70, Cook says.

Patching relationships

Fifty years ago, Manitoba Hydro built where it wanted to, First Nations be damned. More recently the crown corporation responsible for keeping Manitobans supplied with electricity has made notable efforts to cultivate better relationships with the people whose land and resources are used. In 1991 Manitoba Hydro agreed to pay Grand Rapids $5.05 million in compensation for damages to the community.

Two of Manitoba Hydro's current projects are partnerships that allow First Nations to be part owners of the generating stations on their land.

But the waters are still murky with mistrust and anger.

Enter the Interfaith Task Force on Northern Hydro Development, a coalition of leaders from United, Mennonite, Lutheran and Roman Catholic churches and the Thunderbird Lodge who have chosen to ally themselves with the people at the other end of the power lines.

"If you sit and have tea with them, you'll hear their stories," says Norman Meade, a Metis elder and church leader who represents Mennonite Central Committee on the task force board. "Hydro officials just listen to the chief and council."

License, please

At the moment, the task force is calling for an in-depth environmental assessment of the Churchill River Diversion that diverts 75 to 85 per cent of the Churchill River through Southern Indian Lake into the Nelson River to feed a series of hydro dams. Built in the 1970s, before the Environment Act, the diversion has never been subjected to the kind of rigorous environmental testing new projects require.

Manitoba Hydro has operated the diversion under a temporary license until now. Recently the task force learned Manitoba Hydro has applied to the Province for final licensing under the Water Power Act, but not for a final license under the Environment Act.

An environmental licensing process would be redundant and the Province hasn't required it, says Glenn Schneider, spokesperson for Manitoba Hydro.

"Are we going to ask then that all projects completed in the '60s or '70s and beyond that go through a modern environmental review process?" says Schneider. "There's no good purpose going to be served by that. I can understand it's a method for drawing attention to things, but it doesn't make a lot of sense."

Mercury in the water that makes fish dangerous to eat, vanishing riverbank habitats, debris accumulating on eroding shorelines and the disappearance of wildlife are only a few of the side-effects of hydro-electric development along the Nelson River, says Merrel-Ann Phare, who directs the Centre for Indigenous Environmental Resources. She believes an environmental assessment open to public input is critical.

Hugo Unruh, the interfaith task force chair, sees this as a window opportunity for Manitoba's church community to "have some real debate about what's going on."

"There's a story that's not being told, and that is the cost to northern communities," he says. "Here's an opportunity to find out what we haven't been told so far and to get involved. It's a matter of keeping in solidarity with our Christian brothers and sisters up north."

Manitoba's environment minister Stan Struthers wouldn't comment on whether the Province will require Hydro to pursue final licensing under the Environment Act.

Eric Robinson, the minister in charge of northern affairs, told ChristianWeek he had met with the task force, but would rather see church groups "addressing socio-economic needs of communities as opposed to getting involved in the environmental movement."

Manitoba Hydro projects bring jobs and contracts—footholds out of poverty for northern communities, says Robinson. "If [church groups] are anti-development, they're anti-Indian."

"These communities are all struggling with poverty. We're not going to say that anything that might alleviate some of that should be stopped," says Unruh, who doesn't want to see First Nations voices drowned by Manitoba Hydro's "very powerful and very slick" public relations machine.

Partnership potential

Ceremonial smudges, drumming and traditional prayers marked the start of construction on the Wuskwatim dam. The 200-megawatt generating station on the Burntwood River is Manitoba Hydro's first equity partnership with a First Nation.

In 2006 Nisichawayasihk Cree Nation (NCN) signed onto a partnership which will allow NCN to own up to a third of the station.

Traditional aboriginal knowledge was used in the planning and environmental assessment of the project. The dam's low head design will flood less than half a square kilometre.
But the band still has to buy its share of the station. Coming up with that cash is proving harder than they bargained for, says NCN chief Jim Moore.

"The way the deal is right now, I wouldn't sign it," he says. "The strict timeline for us to come up with equity has put a lot of strain on our First Nation."

Moore says he still holds out hope the band can hit the 33 per cent mark.

And not enough of his people are getting jobs, he adds. Manitoba Hydro has hired more than 400 workers from the NCN, about 22 per cent of total hires.

Agnes Spence, a band councilor in Nelson House, says two of her sons were hired to work on the project. One couldn't handle working 10 hours a day, six days a week for two months at a time. "Our people have not had a workforce," she says. "They have no history of being able to work that much. They burn out easy."

Her second son started as a cook but was demoted to clean-up. He went back to school to upgrade his skills; now he can't get his job back, Spence says. "Lucky for me he cooks me dinner. That's all I got from Wuskwatim so far."

Power to the people

In May, Tataskweyak Cree Nation signed a partnership agreement on one of Manitoba Hydro's biggest dams yet. Tataskweyak plus three other Cree nations—Fox Lake, War Lake and York Factory—will be able to own up to 25 per cent of Keeyask, a 695-megawatt dam in the works for Gull Lake.

It wasn't an easy choice, says Victor Spence, manager of future development for Tataskweyak. "Some of our elders cried. They remember the pristine environment, but they also know that that way of life cannot be romanticized. It was a hard life.

"Our elders said, 'The mighty Nelson River has always provided for the wellbeing and sustenance of the First Nations. But the traditional economy of trapping, hunting and gathering cannot sustain our culture and identity….Once again the mighty Nelson River is going to provide for us."

The important thing is that this is a choice the Tataskweyak Cree Nation made for itself, says Spence. "We will not be beggars in our own land. We have been for too long."

Manitoba Hydro has agreed to loan Tataskweyak much of the money it needs to buy into the project. Tataskweyak will pay back the loan once the dam starts turning a profit.

Growing challenge

This power conundrum will only get bigger. Manitoba Hydro has about $18 billion worth of projects planned for the near future, including its biggest dam yet and a 2,000 megawatt power line along the west side of Lake Manitoba.

Some of that power will be for sale to markets outside Manitoba with a growing interest in "green" energy. But it's also needed to feed the Manitoba's electricity consumption, which grows two to three per cent each year.

"If we were to just not build anything, within about 10 years we would be at our capacity in Manitoba and we would urgently need new power plants," says Schneider.

Even though homes are getting more energy efficient, they're twice as big as they used to be, he points out, "with more and more electrical devices all the time.

"Fifteen years ago when I started no one had a computer on their desk, and now everyone has a computer on their desk, and they run 24 hours a day."

Helping Manitoban Christians understand where their electricity comes from and who pays the price is part of the task force's work, says Unruh.

"When you turn on your light in the morning or when you switch on your stove to cook supper, or when you boot up your computer do you have any idea what's on the other end of that wire?" he says. "If you don't, you need to find out. Because we are connected to those people whether we like it or not."

Respond to Article  |  E-mail Article  |  Print Article