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dam-l [harmful-hydro] Wausau Daily Herald: Dams hurt land, way of life
Wausau (Wisconsin) Daily Herald -- June 19, 2000
Tribe: Dams hurt land, way of life
The Cree had problems before hydro plant, power company says
By Nikki Kallio
Wausau Daily Herald
CROSS LAKE, Manitoba -- Verla Umpherville is at her wits' end.
Since September, when the crisis hot line was set up, she's had
almost as many calls as there are people in her northern Manitoba
community of 4,000. There were seven suicides and 144 attempts in a
six-month period. On June 3, a 33-year-old man shot himself to death.
"Right now, people are feeling the effects of hopelessness and
helplessness in the community, up to the point where they're at a
loss," Umpherville said.
The Pimicikamak Cree Indian tribe say Manitoba Hydro, which built
dams on the Nelson River to help create hydroelectric power to serve
the province and the United States, ruined their hunting and fishing
way of life. They say the dams are at least partially responsible for
the frustration that surges through the community.
A proposed 345-kilovolt power line from near Duluth to Rothschild
could tap into power from Manitoba Hydro, Wisconsin Public Service
officials have said. The power line also would get power from coal
plants in North and South Dakota.
"We want the people to know that the energy that they're
receiving is
not by any means green," said Tribal Chief John Miswagon. "It's
not
by any means pure. And it's not by any means renewable. And
it's
devastating to our culture and our lifestyle, and it's taking
away
our rights to sustenance."
The power company disagrees. Even if some of the transmission line
power came from Manitoba Hydro, it wouldn't affect the Cross Lake
Cree people, said Glenn Schneider, public affairs manager for the
company.
And the problems of the Cross Lake Cree aren't unusual -- other
indigenous communities have a high rate of poverty, alcoholism and
suicide, and the Pimicikamak problems can't be blamed on Manitoba
Hydro, he said.
The history
The Pimicikamak Cree acknowledge that their problems started before
the hydroelectric project was built. They say the underlying problem
is a loss of identity that started with residential schools -- much
like the boarding schools in the United States -- that forced
aboriginal children to leave their families and their way of life.
The dams were the second major blow, they said.
"Residential school removed the people from the land; the hydro
project removed the land from the people," Ron Niezen wrote in an e-
mail message. Niezen spent two years in Cross Lake as an
environmental justice researcher.
The high incidence of suicide and suicide attempts that affect Cross
Lake and other aboriginal communities are one outcome of a long
history of imposed cultural change, he said.
Removing children from their families and putting them in the
residential school kept children from learning their culture,
learning how to live in a family and learning how to live off the
land, Niezen said.
The physical and mental abuse suffered in these schools also has been
a lasting legacy, he said.
Then in the 1970s, the hydroelectric project on the Nelson River was
started. It caused significant environmental impact, and the evidence
is everywhere -- standing dead trees, debris littering hundreds of
miles of shoreline islands that have eroded and sunk, and snowmobiles
bogged down in slush because of fluctuating water levels, Niezen said.
"The project has also, without doubt, made game less plentiful and has
almost completely wiped out whitefish and sturgeon, two staples of
the Cree diet," he said.
Miswagon, 35, remembers when he was a kid. He and his friends would
wake up very early on Saturday morning and run along the water to
spend the weekend fishing.
"That was a healthy lifestyle. ... We used to haul our own wood, that
was physical exercise, we used to haul our own water, that was
physical exercise, we used to go trapping," Miswagon said. "All those
are gone now. Now you turn the water tap on. It leads to a very
static lifestyle. With that static lifestyle comes health problems,
high blood pressure, diabetes, heart attacks ... Manitoba Hydro has
the audacity to say `We didn't do it.'"
But Schneider said the Cree are romanticizing the way things used to
be and that the Cree didn't make their living off hunting and
fishing. A governmental study funded by Manitoba Hydro showed that in
1972 and 1973 about 15 percent of the Cross Lake income came from
hunting, fishing and trapping.
But that doesn't mean it wasn't a key part of their culture,
and the
company knows the hydroelectric projects had significant impacts.
Damages dispute
In 1977, the company and the five main Cree nations affected by the
hydroelectric project signed the Northern Flood Agreement, which
stated Manitoba Hydro would mitigate damages it caused through the
project.
But the agreement proved difficult to implement, largely because of a
difference of opinion over its terms, according to the company's
Internet site.
The Internet site's home page has a link to information about
Cross
Lake because the issue has received so much publicity, Schneider said.
Four of the five nations -- except Cross Lake -- renegotiated the
agreement and came to different settlements. But the Cross Lake Cree
want the company to stick to its original agreement.
Schneider said the company is willing to do that, but the agreement
wouldn't provide the community with any money, and the new
agreement
would.
"We thought (the new agreements) were quite generous, and we thought
they allowed the communities to get on with their lives," Schneider
said.
Manitoba Hydro has spent more than $396 million in northern Manitoba
to mitigate damage from the hydroelectric project.
Cross Lake has received some compensation, including a new hockey
rink and a system to raise water levels.
Cree officials say that's not what they need.
Miswagon said he wants to see economic development, environmental
restoration and recreational opportunity in his community.
Unemployment levels have hit 90 percent in Cross Lake, Cree officials
say.
However, government statistics from 1996 show the number at closer to
30 percent.
No simple answers
Umpherville said the man who committed suicide earlier this month
seemed to have it all.
"He had a wife that loved him, two children ... he had a house, a
vehicle, a lot of little luxuries," Umpherville said. "But it still
wasn't enough to make him live."
The sense of hopelessness is overwhelming, and when a suicide occurs
everyone in the small community is affected, said Bob Brightnose, a
community wellness worker with Pimicikamak Health Services.
With a rate that was three and a half times higher than other
indigenous communities in 1999, something needed to be done.
Cross Lake has started some programs to try to help, including the
crisis line, a debriefing program for witnesses to suicides and
workers on the scene, and cultural events to try to bring some of the
Pimicikamak pride back into the community, he said.
"I don't think we can ever go back and live the way we used to
and hunt and things like that," Brightnose said. "But one thing we
can go back to is the values, the spiritual practices and the giving
and caring, and the looking out for one another. Because that was
that tradition of kinship that was destroyed."
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Old school buds here:
http://click.egroups.com/1/5536/3/_/300139/_/961452710/
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