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dam-l Globe and Mail editorial
To: Aboriginal Coalition
From: Will Braun
Date: 3/27/2000 10:47:21 AM
Subj: Globe and Mail editorial
Globe and Mail Editorial
Friday, March 24
The price of the dams
Provincial power utilities rebuilt lakes and rivers across Canada's North
30 years ago to harness the power of water. It was seen then as a safe,
clean, cheap source of electricity.
That reputation still prevails today, as Manitoba Hydro contemplates
building three new dams on the Nelson and Burntwood Rivers. Unfortunately,
such projects have another, less attractive reputation: the damage they
have done to aboriginal people in Manitoba and Quebec.
Hydroelectricity has a lot going for it. It produces fewer greenhouse-gas
emissions than the burning of fossil fuels, it is renewable, and it is one
of the cheapest forms of energy available.
But it also has environmental and social effects. Hydroelectric
developments hurt the wildlife living along rich shorelines, wildlife that
has been a traditional source of food and income for generations of native
trappers and fishermen.
The philosophy in the 1970s was to build first and account for it later.
After Manitoba Hydro and the province diverted most of the water from
Manitoba's Churchill River into the Nelson River, a move that dramatically
altered water levels on several reserves, the utility and the provincial
and federal governments entered into negotiations with five northern bands
to compensate them for a lost way of life.
The result was the 1977 Northern Flood Agreement, with promises that ranged
from the specific (provision of clean water) to the vague ("the eradication
of mass poverty and mass unemployment").
The implementation of the agreement has been a disaster. Four of the five
bands have had to renegotiate their settlements, while the fifth continues
to fight the other signatories for compensation it says it deserves. Former
federal minister Warren Allmand has blamed the province and Ottawa for
failing to live up to the commitments he helped negotiate 23 years ago.
Manitoba generates more than enough electricity for its own needs. The
Crown corporation exports about one-third of its production, most of it to
the United States. The exports brought in revenues of $326-million last
year, and the income has helped keep the cost of power low in Manitoba.
Residents haven't seen a rate increase in four years.
It is to boost those export revenues that Manitoba Hydro is considering
building the three new dams. The dams could further alter water levels on
the provincial resource lands used for hunting and fishing by two of the
bands affected by the 30-year-old hydro projects.
Although the environmental and social effects of the construction would be
far less severe than those initial developments, it is important to
re-examine the lessons learned from past mistakes.
Clearly, excluding first-nations people from the planning is a non-starter;
Manitoba Hydro is already talking with the bands. Any new projects should
include compensation up front for the way the new dams will affect northern
residents.
But it is equally important that the commitments be clear. However noble
they may have been, many of the promises in the 1977 agreement were so
vague that the only winners were the teams of lawyers hired to hash out the
dollars behind the words.
The Globe and Mail ©