The articles that follow are posted at the request of John Hummel,
researcher with the Cheslatta Nation. As many will already know
the Kemano II project by Alcan was killed by B.C. Premier Harcourt
earlier this week to protect the salmon fishery in the Fraser and
Nechako Rivers.
According to Hummel any water diversion that reduces flow rates
below 30% severely impairs a salmon fishery. The Kemano II
diversion of the Nechako would have easily exceeded this figure.
Hummel also explains that the announcement gives further cause for
celebration because Alcan was also restricted from altering flow
rates on the Nechako River. Fluctuating water levels damages a
river ecosystem.
But the fight is not over for the Cheslatta. Serious questions
remain particularly with regard to Alcan's aluminum smelter at
Kitimat. The Cheslatta want to know where Alcan has/does dispose
of pot lining residue. What air emission readings and effluent
readings are available? Aluminum has been attributed to certain
types of cancer.
For further information please contact:
Cheslatta Whut'en
P.O. Box 909
Burns Lake, BC
V0G 1E0
(604) 694-3334; fax 694-3632
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The following table and editorial were published in the Watershed
Sentinel [Box 39, Whaletown, B.C., Canada V0P 1Z0; ph & fax (604)
936-6992; foci@web.apc.org]
_________________________________________________________________
Table(a) ALCAN'S SUBSIDIZED ELECTRICITY IN BRITISH COLUMBIA
1991 Electricity consumption in Kitimat smelter = 5,428,000 MWh
Nameplate capacity charge: 896MW * $3.281/kW = C$2,939,776
+ Output charges;
Tier one: $2.296/MWh * 250,000 MWh = 574,000
Tier two: $4.594/MWh * 5,178,000 MWh(b) = 23,787,732
= Total capacity + output charges = 27,301,508
- Approximate amount actually paid by Alcan = 1,194,160
= Approximate annual "subsidy" by B.C. to Alcan .... 26,107,348
_________________________________________________________________
(a) This table is contained in an International Rivers Network
(IRN) working paper by Jennifer S. Gitlitz called: "The
Relationship between Primary Aluminum Production and the
Damming of World Rivers." IRN is based in Berkeley,
California. The Gitlitz paper includes a chapter on Alcan's
Kemano projects. IRN can be reached at (510) 848-1155.
(b) [5,428,000 - 250,000 = 5,178,000]
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Editorial - December 94 / January 95, The Watershed Sentinel
Off the Big Boards
In early November, federal Fisheries Minister Brian Tobin took a
helicopter trip over the Nechako River calling on First Nation
communities affected by Alcan's $1.3-billion water diversion
project. Remembering the devastation caused by Alcan's original
Kemano project in the 1950's, First Nations, environmentalists and
many citizen's groups want the Kemano Completion Project (KCP)
cancelled. The planned project will reduce the volume of the
Nechako River to 12% of its historical level, possibly slamming
shut the gate on the whole Fraser River system to spawning salmon
by lowering water levels at Hell's Gate Canyon.
The Minister offered no hope or encouragement to the concerned
groups. However, he did warn that taxpayers could stand to lose
millions of dollars if the federal government intervened to cancel
the project on which Alcan has already spent nearly $500-million.
He warned of "hundreds of millions, if not billions, of financial
liability." No mention was made of the $US 995 million Alcan has
already received in federal tax deferrals. Probably Kemano II is
already written off.
It's likely that taxpayers would consider it a very good deal
indeed, if the federal government cancelled the KCP, forgave the
$500 million in back taxes, and Alcan returned the remaining half
billion dollars to the Canadian treasury.
Most of us, over the years, have been deluged with television,
newspaper and magazine ads extolling the good corporate citizenship
of Alcan. Perhaps it's time for Alcan to seriously evaluate that
citizenship. Would a good citizen willing put at risk such an
important food source as the wild salmon while the world's
population time-bomb ticks? If we are to believe the ads, Alcan
would not.
Some few months ago, when the world celebrated Nelson Mandela's
election to the presidency of South Africa, we witnessed the
awesome power of an international boycott. When all's said and
done, if the Fraser salmon run is destroyed because of the Kemano
Completion Project, Alcan may well find itself with no place to run
except off the bottom of the big boards at the world's stock
exchanges.
Don Malcolm, November 1994
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Opinion page - The Vancouver Sun, Friday, January 20, 1995
POSSIBLE BREACH OF DUTY IDENTIFIED IN KEMANO BRIEF
by Stephen Hume
The biggest threat to Alcan's billion-dollar dream of completing
the second phase of its Kemano project may prove to be the tiny,
impoverished Cheslatta Indian Band.
They were never consulted in the first deal to flood their lands
in the Upper Nechako watersheds. Men came home in 1952 from
hunting to find their possessions in the snow and their cabins
burning. Compensations was paid, a contemptible pittance.
A small indigenous people had been crushed in the convergence of
big business, big government and big money.
Forty-five years ago, the Cheslatta were abandoned to their
fate. It was a nightmare of shattered self-esteem and internalized
anger that came to life as alcoholism, violence and suicide.
In the basement of a log cabin, from a couple of offices crowded
with filing cabinets, a fax with an autodialler and a sheaf of
freedom of information forms, the Cheslatta have been waging a
tireless propaganda war.
Their enemies are the government and corporate forces that put
them in a position of "begging for a few dollars" while others make
millions from their former lands.
Until now, propaganda has been the only weapon they've had and
they've wielded it like seasoned professionals.
It was the Indians who brought to light and gave national
prominence to respected department of fisheries scientists who
complained of being pressured to abandon their scientific
principles on the altar of political expedience.
When Alcan turned to a glitzy, TV advertising campaign to push
its case, the Cheslatta countered with a blizzard of faxes. They
were transcripts from a meeting between Alcan vice-president Bill
Rich and the Indians at Uncha Lake.
Asked whether he thought Alcan had any moral obligation to
assist in any cleanup of the Cheslatta system, the corporate
executive indulged himself in a bit of pompous rhetoric:
"Companies don't have morals..." he began. Rich went on to
frame a philosophical argument - but the damage was already done in
the opening phrase and the Cheslatta exploited it to cruel effect.
Now, warnings arise that the Indians have more than words to
muster in their attempt to kill Kemano Completion.
A legal brief to the provincial government regarding the still
unreleased report of the B.C. Utilities Commission tribunal
reviewing Kemano II was leaked. The main media focus has been what
the brief reveals about the BCUC report - that it concludes that
the flow regimes negotiated in the 1987 settlement agreement do not
leave enough water to sustain Nechako salmon.
And what the government's intention toward the project might be
- with the Liberal opposition already committed to killing it and
an election year looming, the NDP seems to be looking for ways to
unload a political albatross.
Buried in the legal documents is an aboriginal bombshell. The
brief offers the legal opinion that both provincial and federal
governments may have been in breach of their most fundamental
fiduciary responsibility to the Cheslatta people in 1952 and in the
1987 settlement agreement.
"It seems very likely, based on the limited information
available, that the Cheslatta First Nation has a cause of action
for breach of fiduciary duty against the federal Crown for the way
in which the original 1952 surrender was obtained, as well as the
way in which the 1987 settlement agreement was reached.
"The federal crown did not adequately protect the Indian's
interest in either case. The BCUC report provides additional
support for this position," the brief says.
"The province may well be liable for breach of its fiduciary
duty in relation to a grant of Alcan's Occupation Permit and Water
Licence in 1950, as well as for any infringement of aboriginal
rights that may be entailed as a result of the 1987 settlement
agreement.
"The remedy for breach of fiduciary duty is usually closely
tailored to the nature of the breach, and the courts have a wide
range of remedies available. Since the nature and extent of
fiduciary obligation to Native peoples is sui generis, the remedy
for its breach must also be unique.
"This could include... compensation, reading down a grant,
setting aside a transaction, damages, etc.
"Setting aside a transaction" - that's the one that must be
sending cold chills down Alcan's spines.
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National News A3 - The Globe and Mail, Wednesday, January 25, 1995
B.C. LIABLE FOR DAM COMPENSATION, OTTAWA SAYS
-----------------------------------
Harcourt accused of reaping popularity
for killing Kemano project, but ducking responsibility
by Ross Howard, British Columbia Bureau
VANCOUVER - The B.C. government has killed Alcan Aluminum's $1.3-
billion Kemano hydroelectric project, but the issue is far from
dead as a political and financial albatross for the province.
Premier Michael Harcourt declaration that Ottawa should
compensate the company for the project's demise is "buck passing"
and irresponsible and it will not work, said the federal
government's senior minister for British Columbia, David Anderson.
Mr. Anderson, Revenue Minister and Liberal political czar for
the Pacific and Northwest, said Mr. Harcourt conveniently ignored
a 30-year history of B.C. governments aggressively endorsing
Alcan's Kemano Completion Project.
"It is a new regime in power [since 1991], but the same
government, the same political administration," Mr. Anderson said
in an interview.
"And it has got to be a little more realistic about its comments
on who is to blame."
In the mid-1980's, British Columbia's Social Credit government
joined Alcan in fighting Ottawa's attempts to impose further
controls on the project, Mr. Anderson said. And while the former
federal Progressive Conservative government also helped in the
project by exempting it from a full environmental assessment in
1991, he said, Monday's order for a permanent halt is a provincial
initiative. He said B.C.'s New Democratic government is trying to
reap political popularity for killing the project, but ducking
economic responsibility.
Coming after similar remarks on Monday by federal Fisheries
Minister Brian Tobin, Mr. Anderson's comments signal a federal hard
line on the subject.
Even while Mr. Harcourt was insisting on Monday that Ottawa take
responsibility for compensation, provincial officials privately
invited Alcan to begin closed talks.
Corporate officials at Alcan, who remained silent on Monday
after B.C. froze their project, in which they have invested $530-
million, are testing the province's invitation to settle
compensation costs out of court, an official familiar with the
company's strategy said yesterday.
Alcan intends to focus its demands - which could top the
billion-dollar mark - on the provincial government in Victoria.
"There's no one else to talk to," the official said. "No one else
has done anything to us."
He said the company is looking for immediate progress in private
negotiations or will resort to a massive lawsuit. "It won't take
long to find out if we're being strung along," the official said,
referring to province's invitation for talks between's Alcan's
negotiator and Mr. Harcourt's deputy minister, Douglas McArthur.
The company is combing through a B.C. Utilities Commission
report that Mr. Harcourt released on Monday, saying it supported
halting the Kemano project as an environmental risk to salmon
fisheries.
In private discussions yesterday, Alcan's officials rejected Mr.
Harcourt's claim on Monday that the project was uneconomical. The
firm's key interest is long-term hydroelectric power for its
aluminum smelter at Kitimat, not short-term profit from selling
surplus electricity to B.C. Hydro, the officials said.
Mr. Harcourt's decision to halt the project, which involves
diverting water from the Nechako River into a company power plant
18 kilometres away, was hailed in British Columbia as a victory for
environmental values over corporate considerations and backroom
deal making.
Environmentalists, commercial and sport-fishing interests and
both opposition parties hailed the move.
Alcan's hopes for public or political sympathy in seeking
compensation are not helped by the fact that the company has a
deferred income tax account of almost $900-million with the federal
government.
Kemano critics in British Columbia, such as the United Fishermen
and Allied Workers Union and Greenpeace, seized upon the account's
existence this week and argued that Kemano should "take their
compensation from these monies owed," although the account is a
federal one and Alcan's claim will lie with Victoria.
Company officials confirmed yesterday that Alcan's 1993 annual
report shows $888-million is deferred income taxes and the 1994
account, although not yet reported, is not substantially different.
Alcan officials, however, are not without hope of provincial
compensation. They note the province's decision to order a
permanent halt to Kemano on environmental grounds violates a 1987
binding contract signed by Alcan, Victoria and Ottawa approving the
project.
The report also gave the province the option of ordering Alcan
to make expensive remedial additions to the project, which would
have meant that Alcan would have to kill the project as too
expensive.
The province's action raised speculation in Vancouver yesterday
that despite the public-relations benefit of trying to push the
compensation issue into Ottawa's lap, the B.C. government may be
more willing than publicly acknowledged to privately pay
compensation.
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I think a few letters to the provincial and federal ministers are
in order. Don't you? - Dave