This article is from the twice monthly newspaper, News From Indian
Country. It is published by Indian Country Communications, Inc.
with offices at Rt.2 Box 2900A, Hayward, WI 54843. They may be
contacted by calling (715) 634-5226; FAX (715) 634-3243.
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NFIC Late July 1993 and NFIC, Mid August, 1993
American contracts, Canadian Hydro team up for anti-terrorist surveillance
by Winona LaDuke
Part I
A March Montreal Press conference held by the Quebec Cree,
Greenpeace and a number of environmental and religious
organizations lambasted Hydro Quebec for violating the Canadian
Charter of Rights through the expansion and re-arming of the
corporations' police force.
Native people and organizations have filed a complaint with
the Quebec Human Rights Commission citing a recently "leaked"
Hydro-Quebec document which outlines a plan for "advanced
investigatory powers" to protect the Corporation's interests from
opponents.
The report, entitled "Evolution of Security and Business Plan
for the Surete 1991-4, Horizon 1996", brings to light the need for
the provincial corporation to expand and restructure its security
branch by creating a police force specializing in intelligence
gathering and combating "terrorism".
This news was particularly disturbing to the Cree and other
opponents of HQ's James Bay II Mega Project, as the report singled
out Natives as a force to reckoned with and a group capable of
using violence in the pursuit of its goals.
Hydro-Quebec officials explained the report was drafted after
the Mohawk-Quebec Oka crisis, when "fears of sabotage were very
high."
The Cree countered that in the almost two decades they have
opposed Hydro Quebec's projects, they have exclusively resorted to
legal and peaceful methods, and found the HQ proposal "a threat to
the development and the preservation of the right of the Cree to
voice their positions in the province of Quebec ..."
Elsewise, environmentalists and Cree wondered aloud why
Hydro-electric consumers should pay for a special anti-terrorism
private police force, as a part of their electric bill.
At stake is much of northern Quebec, a land where Innu, Inuit
and Cree have lived for thousands of years and for only two
decades has there been either electricity or a single
Hydro-electric official. James Bay I - the 9 dams, 206 dikes, five
major reservoirs, and a diversion of four rivers (all without an
environmental assessment prior to construction) - has already
flooded 4425 square miles of land, an area the size of
Connecticut.
Phase II consists of 21 dams, 200 dikes and promises the
diversion of four more rivers. Under water will be an area the
size of Lake Erie. The sequel is "on the rocks" so to speak, since
pressure and litigation from environmentalists and Natives has not
only caused a cancellation of the largest contract, the New York
Power Authority Contract ($21 billion), but forced an environmental
review of the project.
These proverbial laurels cannot be rested on, however, since a
Canadian environmental review has never been binding, and, aside
from that, New England still get plenty of power from Cree rivers.
According to Greenpeace researcher Kentswep, the Commonwealth
of Massachusetts alone consumes 40% of the electricity generated at
James Bay, an amount equivalent to 6-10% of the total electricity
generated statewide.
And another New York Power Authority contract (800 megawatt) is
still on the books (used as leverage for new financing), although
the contract can be cancelled up til 1994, without any penalty
accruing the state.
Hydro Quebec is understandably very insecure about any
opposition to the dams, evidenced not only by the proposed
expansion of their force, but by a recent set of forays into New
England Universities, where HQ "observers" attended, for instance,
the New England Environmental Conference and environmental
gatherings at Brown University and elsewhere.
The company's presence, however, does not seem to be enough to
turn the tide against divestment: In mid-April Tufts University
freed itself of Hydro-Quebec stock, a $2 million deal orchestrated
by student environmental activists.
There is a great deal of money to be made, and Hydro-Quebec's
interests are not isolated on the free-trade frontier between the
U.S. and Canada. The United States, after all, is the single
largest energy consumer in the world, with over one third of the
world's electrical energy capacity.
Canada, for years, has serviced the U.S. consumer market
particularly with natural resources; and more recently with
electricity. So, while much of the American environmental movement
has focused on the evils of Hydro-Quebec, there are other dams and
communities similarly at risk.
Take for instance the case of Manitoba Hydro. In the early
1970's, a series of seven dams were put into place on the Nelson and
Churchill River systems, and now spin out 2600 megawatts of power.
In total, another 11 generating stations are proposed which will
spin out an additional 6000 megawatts.
Between them and the Churchill and Nelson River systems drain
one of the largest watersheds in North America, extending from the
Rockies in the west to the Mississippi and Lake Superior drainage
basin in the south. These rivers ultimately flow into the Hudson
Bay - the larger bay into which James Bay flows. One control dam at
Missi Falls on the Churchill River illustrates the intent. The dam
cut the flow from an average of 1050 meters per second to an
average of 150 meters per second. and turned all the water back
into South Indian Lake.
A major problem resulting from the dam is silting. The Manitoba
Hydro dams are situated in permafrost, and as Dr. Robert Newbury of
the Freshwater Institute notes, "What made the venture critical was
that it was the first large river diversion and lake impoundment in
permafrost. When the project was planned, the implications of that
were suspected but unproven..."
The development has inadvertently been an ecological experiment.
Since the temperature of the water always exceeds the temperature
of the soil, the water causes a constant "melting away" of the
shoreline. The annual rate of "shoreline retreat", as it is aptly
called, is presently 40-50 meters. According to the Winnipeg-based
Freshwater Institute, it may be 80 years or more before shoreline
retreat subsides.
Silting chokes the reservoirs, causes widespread mercury
contamination and the destruction of wildlife. There is a story
told by northern moose hunters: Two hunters in a boat scanned the
shore of South Indian Lake for a moose. After much searching, they
finally happened on one: a moose sinking, up to its neck in silt.
That, one might say, is anecdotal testimony to "shoreline retreat."
It is this ecosystem change which, according to the Freshwater
Institute, has caused over 98% of the waterfowl to disappear from
the region and one out of every six people on the Nelson River to
suffer from mercury contamination.
The impact has been widespread economic and social disruption.
Two decades ago, 75% of the food came from the land, as well as the
majority of local income. Today, that is impossible. Very little
comes from the land and the people are forced to buy food at the
store, often at prices ten times those in the south.
Part II
by Winona LaDuke
At the Cree village of Moose Lake, for instance, two thirds of
their land base was flooded and 634 people were moved into a
housing project. "After the flooding", 90% of the adults were
estimated to have substance abuse problems.
Jim Tobacco of the Moose Lake band explains, "There is a very
hostile attitude in the community. Our young people don't know who
the hell they are. They live month to month on welfare. Our way of
life and resources have been destroyed. We were promised benefits
from the Hydro Project. Today, we are poor and Manitoba Hydro is
rich."
Elsewhere, suicide epidemics plague flooded communities.
"There's just a feeling they're being exploited, they're being
used," says Allen Ross, Chief of Norway House, another flooded
community. His small village had 15 suicide attempts a month during
the 1980's, and at Cross Lake, 20 suicide attempts occurred per
month during an eight month period - ten times the provincial
average.
Manitoba government officials are quick to point to the recent
"compensation package" worth tens of millions to these Northern
villages, but in the face of a near doubling of hydro-electric
capacity in the North, many natives have come to wonder if there is
"just compensation" for a way of life.
From Newfoundland to British Columbia, Hydro-electric dams
devastate salmon, rivers, remote communities, and a way of life,
and more are planned. A good portion of the power is designated for
American markets.
The single largest out-of-province export contract held by the
Manitoba Hydro, for instance, is with Northern States Power, Energy
Secretary Hazel O'Leary's old home turf in Minnesota. A larger
contract with Ontario Hydro was cancelled this past year, after
Ontario environmentalists opposed the contract on environmental and
economic grounds.
Aside from dollars and megawatts, there is also pride and ego
involved. Quebec has coupled much of it's "nationalism" with it's
"national" utility-Hydro Quebec, called by some "the sacred cow" of
Quebec politics.
To many, within the province, "to be anti-Hydro is to be
anti-Quebec." In the meantime, Premier Bourassa has pinned much of
his province's future on the massive project, a matter of "national
pride", and a dream of austensibly being a "aluminum and magnesium
smelter heaven".
Quebec's development plan rivals only that of a World Bank debt
ridden country like Venezuela; with whom Quebec is locked in a
debauched bidding war, to promise huge multinationals "the lowest
possible electrical prices in the world", in order to secure the
metals industry's investments.
The U.S. - Canada Free Trade Agreement, signed between Canada
and the U.S., compounds the boon for American utilities, but not
for the North American environment. The Free Trade Agreement
guarantees Canada (and possibly soon Mexico) access to that
infinite U.S. market, in return for U.S. access to their relatively
abundant and "underdeveloped" reserves, while prohibiting
government interventions that hinder that process.
As Shelly Battram and Reiner Lock write in an Energy Law
Journal article, "...for Canada, achieving assured access to U.S.
markets, free of 'energy policy' interventions or protectionist
distortions and for the U.S., the ability to procure Canadian energy
supplies on a long term, reliable basis, free of 'energy policy and
nationalistic interventions in times of perceived shortage', is
paramount."
NAFTA, accentuates the unequal trade. Articles 603 and 604 of
the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) virtually
eliminates Canada and Mexico's ability to control the price or flow
of energy exports on the basis of resource conservation,
environmental protection, or interests of their citizens.
What appears obvious in the amount of work left to do, and the
ability of grassroots activists, working with Native leaders in the
U.S. and Canada took out a full page New York Times advertisement
and subsequently Bobby Kennedy and Mathew Coon Come of the Cree
held a press conference - it sent the company, once again reeling;
hoping their stock rating wouldn't drop further. Hydro Quebec is
praying that the poor and unknown, the Cree and the Bobby Kennedy's
won't make New York cancel that 800 megawatts New York contract.
I for one, hope we do.
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Winona LaDuke is an Anishinabeg writer and community organizer
living in Ponsford, Minnesota, who works on environmental and land
issues. LaDuke is a Green Peace board member and belongs to many
other grassroots organizations. Her two children live half time on
James Bay, where their grandfather's territory will be impacted by
James Bay II.
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Michele Lord + If you have come here to help me,
+ you are wasting your time.....
+ But if you have come because
+ your liberation is bound up with mine,
milo@scicom.alphacdc.com + then let us work together.
Aboriginal Woman
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