A Reply to the Director of Communications, Government of Manitoba
Manitoba Hydro's and the Government of Manitoba's boreal hydro mega-project -- "a moral and ecological catastrophe"
Mr Flanagan is not telling Americans that Manitoba Hydro (and the governments of Manitoba and Canada) formally acknowledged in 1997 that as a result of the mega-project, "the water regime of certain waters, rivers, lakes and streams has been, or will be modified" and that:
"As a result of the modification of the water regime, adverse effects have occurred, and may continue to occur, on the lands, pursuits, activities and lifestyles, of the residents, individually and collectively, of the Reserves of Cross Lake, Nelson House, Norway House, Split Lake and York Landing."
"has subsequently become well known for its massive scale and detrimental effects on the northern Manitoba environment and the Aboriginal peoples who live there. Although the project directly affected the lands and livelihood of five treaty communities... and one non-treaty community, they were not consulted, nor did they give approval for the undertaking... Reserve and community lands were either flooded or affected by dramatic changes to levels in surrounding lakes and rivers, and traditional land-use areas were damaged or rendered inaccessible."
Likewise, the government of Manitoba is not telling Americans that a1999 Canadian Inter-Church Inquiry into northern flooding in Manitoba concluded that the Manitoba Hydro project has been a "moral and ecological catastrophe for northern Manitoba and its indigenous peoples". (See Mennonite Central Committee http://www.mccm.mb.ca/cldams.html web-site.) Significantly, the Chairman of the Board of Manitoba Hydro admitted publicly -- at a recent Minnesota energy and human rights conference -- that his corporation does not contest this Church inquiry conclusion.
Neither are Americans being told that Judge Ferg ruled in 1982 (in ordering Manitoba Hydro to build an ice-hockey arena to begin to replace the Crees' devastated natural recreational amenities) that Manitoba Hydro's project "drastically altered" the Cross Lake Crees' environment and "almost turned the [eco-]system upside down from a state of nature". The 1991 Manitoba Aboriginal Justice Inquiry (chaired by a Chief Justice) reported similarly.
The leadership of another affected aboriginal Nation recently stated that the "massive" Hydro Project:"...has caused adverse impacts of tragic proportions to our land, lives, and livelihood. Our traditional lands and a way of life have been devastated and desecrated by the adverse impacts of the Hydro Project."
The government of Manitoba owns Manitoba Hydro and is of course thus very keen that Americans, who buy more than a third of the power produced by this "moral and ecological catastrophe" remain unaware (or mollified or confused) about the plain facts: that the present hydro project is a vast, unmitigated environmental and social catastrophe, and that proposals to expand it to export more power to the United States will inevitably compound the damage.
A few technical errors in environmentalists' handouts are inconsequential. We who live in the middle of this nightmare know that the Sierra Clubs of Canada and the U.S. were correct to conclude that:
"hydroelectric development of this magnitude and type is not clean, benign or renewable: it devastates land, water, species and their habitats, and the people who live with this environment, and it often displaces truly renewable energy alternatives and conservation measures." The Sierrans urged "all [American] utilities to divert expenditures form this type of harmful hydropower to development and use of cleaner, renewable alternatives such as wind and solar power, and to conservation programs."
The NDP government of Manitoba is promising Americans that it will now behave differently to the environment and aboriginal inhabitants of the boreal forest than its predecessors (including NDP governments) have for the last 30 years. The Pimicikamak Crees (who live at Cross Lake) and many Canadians hope that this will be true. But they remember that it was an NDP government that conceived and built the mega-project; that was inactive while it was in power for many years through the 1980's as the environmental and social conditions in boreal Manitoba worsened; and that conceived a governmental scheme during the 1980's to destroy the aboriginal peoples' ability to defend their environmental and treaty rights in the face of this catastrophe.
Manitoba Hydro has belatedly just begun to address its 1977 promises to clean up the entire area of the environmental slum it created in the early 1970's. (See the photographs below.) But more than six months after this "new" government was elected, progress is glacial at best. At the present rate, this critically-required cleanup of the existing damage to shorelines and lake areas in this part of boreal North America will take a hundred or more years.
The U.S. (and Canadian) environmental, religious and human rights organisations that are beginning to question Americans' purchase and transmission of this hydro power, are to be commended. We know that their motives and actions will be challenged by those with vested interests in this destructive trade. But we also know they are acting in the best interests of our common environment, which knows no borders. We Pimicikamak Crees are deeply grateful.
>
> 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.
>
