The November-December 1991 issue of Audubon Magazine has an 8-page
cover article about the project as well, with lots of color pictures.
Michele Lord has also offered to type some materials, which will be
posted shortly.
.......................... Charles Scheiner
=================================================================
Topic 13 James Bay Pamphlet
web:csc International Dam Issues 3:29 pm May 15, 1991
The following text is taken from the Sierra Club of Canada's
pamphlet on the James Bay 2 hydro-projects. It was also printed
with a location map. Interested groups are encouraged to adapt
the pamphlet or reprint it themselves. This item is offered in
support of grassroot organising by providing a ready made
information pamphlet. (The map can be obtained by writing to the
Sierra Club address given below.)
The Sierra Club of Canada is posting this information through the
computer account of Cultural Survival (Canada).
Dave Good
Cultural Survival (Canada)
**************************************************
JAMES BAY 2: THE MONSTER MEGA-PROJECT THAT MUST BE STOPPED!
Canadians have been moved to law suits, protest and action over
the damming of the Oldman River in Alberta and the Souris River
in Saskatchewan, but in Northern Quebec, far from anything other
than native settlements, Hydro Quebec is planning an
environmental assault that makes these acts of destruction look
like child's play. The hydro-electric developments planned for
James Bay 2 can be only decribed as Amazonian in scale.
James Bay 2 will affect watersheds the size of France and create
reservoirs the size of Lake Erie. It threatens to extinguish the
way of life of the James Bay Cree and the Inuit of northern
Quebec. Hydro Quebec plans to borrow over $40 billion over a ten
year period to dam, divert and destroy many of the last major
free-flowing rivers into Hudson Bay and James Bay. The "cheap"
power would be used mostly for export to the United States and
to attract transnational corporations to build aluminium smelters
in Quebec.
THE PROJECT'S HISTORY: A BRIEF COURSE IN AWESOME STATISTICS.
The first phase of the James Bay Hydro Project in the early
1970's involved the diverting of four rivers into the LaGrande
River. The LaGrande 1 project was completed in 1985 at a cost
of about $16 billion. Nine dams and 206 dikes were constructed,
extending over three watersheds and five reservoirs now cover an
area of 11,335 square kilometres, half the size of Lake Ontario.
The LaGrande project is now being "upgraded" with another giant
powerhouse and dam near the mouth of the river, as well as the
diversion of five more rivers into the LaGrande. This second
phase will cost $10.7 billion and will be completed by 1996. By
the time the LaGrande project is finished, the reservoirs will
cover 14,950 square kilometres, with 15 dams and 331 dikes.
THE NEXT PHASE: GREAT WHALE FOR THE KILLING
Construction is set to begin in summer 1991 on roads to the Great
Whale River development. The Great Whale, or Grande Baleine,
flows into Hudson Bay to the north of LaGrande River
developments. Two rivers will be diverted, five dams and 133
dikes will be built and three or four reservoirs covering an area
of 4,387 square kilometres will be created. Hydro Quebec first
asked for its construction licence for the Great Whale project
in 1981, and has not publically released any of its environmental
impact studies. Now it is rushing the environmental process,
claiming to be three years behind schedule. Hydro Quebec want
Great Whale on line by 1998.
THE CROWN JEWEL: THE NOTTAWAY, BROADBACK AND RUPERT RIVER
RAMPAGE
Three giant rivers, the Nottaway, Braodback and Rupert, flow into
James Bay to the south of LaGrande River. The NBR project,
the "Crown Jewel" of its development schemes as it is called by
Hydro Quebec, involves diverting the Nottaway and Rupert into
the Broadback River. Sixteen Dams, 115 dikes, and eight power
stations will be built to generate electricity for twelves series
of transmission lines, scaring the landscape for over 5,500
kilometres to carry electricity to markets in the south. Hydro
Quebec plans the NBR project to be completed by 2007.
WHAT ARE THE IMPACTS?
The first phase of James Bay in the 1970's was built without any
environmental impact assessment. The project itself became the
laboratory that proves that the environmental impacts of furthur
development are unacceptible.
MERCURY CONTAMINATION:
"Hydro Quebec has explained that if there were no Indians, there
would be no mercury problem," says Alan Penn, of the Cree
Regional Authority.
The rotting of flooded vegetation has contaminated the waters of
the rivers and reservoirs with unsafe levels of methyl mercury.
Sixty-four percent of the people of Chisasibi, at the mouth of
the LaGrande River, have unsafe levels of mercury in their
bodies, some as much as 20 times the federally acceptible level.
Fish are part of the cultural and spiritual tradition of the Cree
and are now too loaded with mercury to be safely eaten. Hydro
Quebec says the levels will drop within 6 years. Scientific
studies suggest it could take ten to twenty years before fish are
safe to eat. In the meantime, the people run the very real risk
of developping Minimata disease. The whole food chain and
ecosystem will be contaminated for decades and wildlife will also
suffer.
CLEAN ENERGY?
Contrary to the pro-hydro hype, electricity from mega-dams is not
clean electricity. In the James Bay developments, rotting
vegetation has released vast quantities of methane, a powerful
"greenhouse gas", contributing to global warming. The
destruction of wilderness, forest, wetland, and agricultural
areas through the building of roads and transmission lines will
be extensive. During the last 20 years Quebec has been losing
wilderness at a rate of ten times of British Columbia and twice
that of Ontario.
DESTRUCTION OF WILDLIFE:
Migratory birds, caribou and other terrestrial mammals, as well
as fresh-water and marine mammals are threatened by James Bay
2. In 1984, some 10,000 caribou drowned during migration when
Hydro Quebec opened floodgates out of season. The James Bay is
crucial habitat to literally millions of migratory shorebirds and
waterfowl. Brazil's Minister of the Environment, Jose
Lutzenburger, has written the Canadian government expressing
concern over destruction of habitat of migratory birds that
over-winter in his country. Species such as the endangered
Peregrine falcon and Eskimo curlew will also be threatened.
Beluga whales in Hudson's and James Bay will be affected as the
salinity of the bays is reduced by the withholding of freshwater
from the rivers. The food sources and calving areas of the
whales will be affected. As well, the Great Whale development
will flood the habitat of what may be a unique sub-species of
Ungava fresh-water seal.
In marine ecosystems life is concentrated in scattered "oases"
where conditions are in fragile balance. By significantly
altering the freshwater input and the physical characteristics
of the estuaries Hydro Quebec will effectively destroy these
unique oases.
REVERSING NATURE'S CYCLE:
Hydro Quebec needs to release water through their dams during the
high electricity demand period of winter. By spring, demand
tapers off and they effectively close the dams to save water for
other peak periods, often resulting in drought-like conditions
in the rivers downstream. So, whereas natural rivers are at
their peak in spring run-off, Hydro Quebec reduces the flow in
spring and in winter runs the rivers up to ten times their normal
volume. This practise has already resulted in the deaths of
thousands of caribou, beavers and countless other wildlife, and
has seriuosly disrupted the lifestyle of the indigenous Cree
people. The impact is substantial on all river life.
CULTURAL GENOCIDE:
"If the Great Whale and NBR projects are allowed to go
ahead, you might as well tie rocks around our necks and dump us
into a Hydro Quebec Reservoir because that's what you will be
doing, killing our people," says Matthew Coon-Come, Grand Chief
of the Grand Council of the Cree.
25,000 Cree, Inuit and Naskapi people live in the James Bay
region. The Cree were never consulted before the first phase of
James Bay began. Faced with a fait accompli, they negotiated the
James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement with Quebec and the
federal government. After living with the impacts of the first
phase of hydro development in their area, the Cree are determined
to stop further damming and destruction. The Inuit of Great
Whale are also dead-set against the project.
DO QUEBECERS WANT JAMES BAY 2?
Most of the power generated by James Bay 2 will be sold to the
United States and not consumed in Quebec at all. Most Quebecers
want Hydro Quebec to concentrate on improving service rather than
generating new power. Energy conservation and efficiency
programmes could provide many more benefits to southern Quebec
than James Bay ever will without the devastating environmental
and social consequences. According to economist, Helene
Connor-Lajambe, five to ten times as many jobs could be created
if the billions spent on James Bay were invested in other
sectors. Hydro Quebec's debt will exceed $60 billion by the year
2000, requiring interest payments of over $6 billion a year which
will be passed on to taxpayers!
Surely, this time, there will be adequate environmental
assessment before the project goes ahead?
Don't bet on it! Premier Bourassa wrote in his book, "Power
from the North", "Every day millions of potential kilowatt hours
flow downhill and out to sea. What a waste!"
Bourassa and Hydro Quebec are determined to complete their
gargantuan scheme. To stay on schedule, they have succeeded
in "splitting" the project for the purposes of environmental
assessment treating access roads and airports as a separate
project from building dams and powerhouses. In other words, they
want the construction of 200 kilometres of road into Great Whale
to begin separate from assessment of the project as a whole. The
Federal government has gone along with this transparent attempt
to evade proper environmental assessment. Once the roads are
built, at a cost of $600 million, there will be an almost
unstoppable impetus to complete the whole project.
The Sierra Club is demanding a complete Federal Environmental
Assessment of the project as a whole and public disclosure of
Hydro Quebec documentation.
WHAT YOU CAN DO TO STOP JAMES BAY 2
1) Write to: (postage not required)
The Hon. Jean Charest,
Minister of the Environment
- and -
The Rt. Hon. B. Mulroney
Prime Minister
Parliament Hill
Ottawa K1A 0H3
Demand that the project be assessed as a whole, not in parts.
Write to Quebec Premier Robert Bourassa and Environment Minister
Pierre Paradis especially if you can write in french and live
in Quebec!
Robert Bourassa
Premier Ministre
885 Grande Allee Est
Quebec, Quebec G1A 1A2
Pierre Paradis
Ministre de l'Environnement
3900 Rue Marly
Sainte-Foy, Quebec G1X 4E4
Lise Bacon
Ministre d'Energie
200B ch. Sainte-Foy
Sainte-Foy, Quebec G1R 4X7
2) Support the work of the Sierra Club National Office and the
International Taskforce on James Bay and Northern Quebec by
sending a generous donation earmarked for the James Bay Emergency
Fund:
Sierra Club of Canada
Suite 420, 1 Nicholas St.,
Ottawa, Ontario K1N 7B7
3) Increase public awareness of the project by writing letters
to the newspaper, locally and nationally, write your MP, and tell
your friends that you are part of the battle to save the last
great wild rivers of northern Quebec and the greatest inland sea
in the world.
==================================================================
Topic 15 James Bay NEWS Apr-June Response 2 of 2
web:eprobe
International Dam Issues 8:41 am Jun 3, 1991
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 31, 1991
QUEBEC'S, CANADA'S ENVIRONMENTAL STANDARDS
CONDEMNED BY THIRD WORLD GROUPS
James Bay Project Draws Cries of Outrage
From Developing Countries
The Quebec Government's plan to build phase II of the James Bay
Project in Northern Quebec has drawn cries of outrage from
environmental groups in Guatemala, the Philippines, Colombia and
Malaysia. In recent letters to Premier Bourassa and Prime
Minister Mulroney, environmentalists from these Third World
countries condemned Canada's assault on the people and ecology of
Northern Quebec, calling it "willful environmental destruction and
abuse of native rights."
Stinging foreign rebukes of Canadian hydro dam projects and
forestry practices are on the increase and are responsible for the
recent branding of Canada as "Amazon North". According to Matthew
CoonCome, Grand Chief of the Crees of Quebec, the title is
deserved. "The devastation wrought by such ill-conceived projects
is comparable no matter what the latitude," said Grand Chief
CoonCome.
Among those who wrote to the Prime Minister and Premier Bourassa
denouncing the James Bay Project was Jose Borrero Navia, a
criminal lawyer and Director of the Colombian environmental group
FIPMA, who declared James Bay II a "barbarism against human beings
and nature," and demanded the project be stopped.
In another letter, six environmentalists from Guatemala, a country
wracked by environmental destruction and an economically
disastrous hydro dam of their own - the Chixoy dam - expressed
dismay at the actions of the Canadian and provincial governments.
"It is a heartache for us to see that, in a developed and
democratic country, people's rights are violated and governmental
agencies do not accomplish the requirements for environmentally
sound projects."
"These people speak from experience," said Patricia Adams,
Executive Director of Probe International. "They are deep in debt
because of projects like James Bay in their own countries. And
they are shocked that Canadian governments can be as abusive as
their own governments," she added.
S.M. Mohammed Idris, Coordinator of APPEN, a Malaysia-based
organization of over 300 groups in the Asia-Pacific region,
deplored the abuse of native rights, calling the James Bay Project
"an international disgrace" and a "terrible example" for the rest
of the world.
These letters signal an escalation of the international opposition
to James Bay II. Letters condemning the project have been
arriving over the past few months from the United Kingdom, France,
Belgium, the Netherlands, and last August from Jose Lutzenberger,
a well-known Brazilian environmentalist and now Brazil's
Environment Secretary. "If Canada proceeds with a project of this
type," wrote Mr. Lutzenberger, "how can we in Brazil, with
comparatively greater problems, be expected to protect our
environment?"
In the United States, environmentalists are demanding that
negotiations between State utilities and Hydro Quebec for the
export of Quebec power, including pending contracts to export 450
megawatts to Vermont Joint Owners Group, and 1,000 megawatts to
the New York Power Authority, be dropped. They contend that
export contracts with American utilities provide the incentive and
financial support for proceeding with the project. As such, these
groups say, the export contracts are "death warrants for the
Northern wildlife, wilderness, and native peoples."
-30-
Contact: Brian Craik, Director, Federal Relations
Grand Council of the Crees of Quebec
(tel) 613-761-1655 (fax) 613-761-1388
(home)613-267-5465
Patricia Adams, Executive Director
Probe International
(tel) 416-978-7014 (fax) 416-978-3824
(home)416-924-4452
Copies of the letters are available from the Grand Council of the
Crees and Probe International.