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dam-l [harmful-hydro] CBC Radio Transcript on Hydro - PCN
T R A N S C R I P T
CBC RADIO - Winnipeg
APRIL, 18 2000
ANNOUNCER: The Pimicikamak Cree Nation in Manitoba has found an
audience south of the border. The First Nation which used to be known
as Cross Lake is winning over American environmentalists with stories
of how flooding by Hydro twenty years ago destroyed their land, their
culture and their lives. It's part of a campaign using some of
the
same tactics and the same consultants employed by the James Bay Cree
from Quebec to stop hydro development in northern Quebec in the
80's
and 90's.
But as CBC radio's Curt Petrovich found out some of those
environmental allies are more interested in their own agenda than the
plight of the people in Cross Lake.
CURT PETROVICH: An audience of 200 people gathered in a lecture room
at a Minneapolis University, most of them are Americans, most of them
are environmental activitists. They are waiting for a tall barrell-
chested man to move in front of the podium microphone. His black hair
gathered into a ponytail tail down the back of his suit jacket. chief
John Miswagon has flown 1,000 kilometers to be here. He's Chief
of
the Pimicikamak Cree Nation at Cross Lake Manitoba. His job is to
represent the 5,500 band members.
CHIEF JOHN MISWAGON: It is also my duty to attend every funeral, and
it is also my duty to go and identify bodies that are hanging from
trees, from houses.
CURT PETROVICH: Pained looks pass over the faces of some people in
the audience, then looks of anger or disgust as Miswagon blames
Manitoba Hydro for the seven suicides last year and the 140 attempts
since the fall.
JOHN MISWAGON: A society that allows a race of people to go on living
in these conditions, I don't understand. I really
don't…Pardon me…
CURT PETROVICH: It's a story that has captured the attention of
people such as George Kroeker. He's known as an activitist's
activitist. Kroeker heads the North American Water Office, an
environmental lobby group.
GEORGE KROEKER: You really couldn't expect Canadian consumers to
purchase products that were made in the course of slavery. I mean,
you just wouldn't, it's not even conceivable.
CURT PETROVICH: Kroeker agrees that that's an exaggeration, but
justifiable if it forces the Minnesota regulators to question the
recent 10-year deal won by Manitoba Hydro to sell 500 megawatts to
Minnesota's Northern States Power, which is Hydro's largest
US
customer.
GEORGE KROEKER: How we deal with the Aboriginal peoples of the Boreal
Forrest is now an issue in the contract negotiations between Northern
State Power Company and Manitoba Hydro. That's good, we're
starting
to shed a little light on it.
CURT PETROVICH: But that light isn't always purer. Literature put
out
by the Sierra Club, for example, claims that Hydro earns a billion
dollars a year from selling 5,000 megawatts to Minnesota, it's
actually $300 million dollars for 500 megawatts. The group says Hydro
is destroying 32 million acres of boreal forest. It's not,
it's
actually 600 hundred thousand acres. Hydro has complained, but the
facts remain unchanged in handouts at this conference. Anne Ostberg
co-chairs the Sierra Club's Minnesota campaign against Hydro.
ANNE OSTBERG: Our ultimate goal would be to stop the import, to stop
Northern States Power from purchasing hydro electricity from Manitoba
Hydro.
CURT PETROVICH: And that's a goal the Manitoba Government is
taking
seriously. Hydro is a Crown Corporation that will earn nearly $400
million from its exports this year.
PREMIER GARY DOER: I think customers should know the truth.
CURT PETROVICH: Premier Gary Doer has already sent two native cabinet
ministers to meet personally with US regulators and power companies.
Doer is telling them that since forming the new government in
September he's put Hydro critics on Hydro's board. He's
replaced the
chairman and begun a dialogue with Cross Lake.
PREMIER GARY DOER: The change in government and the change in cabinet
and the change in the board will allow us to make some changes in the
community on behalf of the people and we want the chance to do that
and we also want the chance and will take the chance to say it.
CURT PETROVICH: But the environmentalists are unmoved even by
contradictory wishes of other Manitoba Cree. Norman Flett is Chief of
the Split Lake Cree First Nation. Seventy-five percent of the
flooding caused by Hydro occurred on Split Lake's traditional
land.
But, Flett says his community now wants to work with Hydro to build a
new smaller generating station to produce Hydro for export. The
potential jobs and revenue will be lost if the Sierra Club is
successful in killing Hydro's exports. So, Flett has flown to
this
conference too. His message is that Cross Lake doesn't speak for
his
community, and he wonders who the environmentalists think they are
helping.
CHIEF NORMAN FLETT: Every time that First Nations were trying to make
something of themselves, kind of create there own economy, we've
always been regulated. I would say the non-native people in the
world, whatever, whoever, are in the midst again of trying to deny us
that economic base. I get really offended on that basis.
CURT PETROVICH: But for the Sierra Club, Chief Flett's view is
ultimately irrelevant and Ostberg says Cross Lake got to them first.
ANNE OSTBERG: They wanted us to be involved and they wouldn't
have
come to us to share with us their story.
REPORTER: And if another one steps forward and says we don't want
you
to be involved who do you believe?
ANNE OSTBERG: We maintain our position that we do not support mega-
hydro projects.
REPORTER: Even if it's at their expense?
ANNE OSTBERG: I think that we have to focus on the environmental
damage issue. I can't get in the middle of it.
CURT PETROVICH: But, the Sierra Club is in the middle of it. Its
equated the very real suffering of people in Cross Lake with the
valuable power that flows over the border, and the Cree have also
been useful to environmentalists who figure them prominently in
another campaign to stop a proposed hydro line in Minnesota and
Wisconsin. Although it has nothing to do with Manitoba Hydro or
Manitoba Cree, environmentalists argue it will carry power generated
in Manitoba. In the decades old dispute between Hydro and the Cree of
Cross Lake it's been hard to figure out just who is responsible
for
what. Now that environmentalists have entered the fray with their own
agenda it's become even more difficult.
In Minneapolis, I'm Curt Petrovich.
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