Two proposed nature-destroying hydroelectric megaprojects
Megawatts Are Not Worth Ecological and Cultural Devastation
Demand Full Environmental Reviews
Imagine millions of fish returning to spawn and finding that their rivers are dry. Picture hundreds of thousands of birds seeking nesting grounds that are flooded. Think of an area that's nearly the size of British Columbia--and imagine all of the fish within it poisonous to eat. That's Quebec's James Bay hydroelectric project. In British Columbia, at the other end of Canada, the Kemano dam and diversion project built in the 1950's, changed the course of a major tributary to the Fraser River, the largest remaining wild salmon river on the Pacific Coast. It decimated a large population of chinook salmon and flooded out wildlife, homesteaders and Indians.
These projects are completed and people must live with their negative consequences. But people are wiser now and won't automatically support the massive second phase of these hydro-electric developments, James Bay II and Kemano II. Both are supposed to create wealth and jobs by subverting nature--impounding and diverting more water from natural watersheds in order to force it into adjacent watersheds and then through electricity-generating turbines.
Although located on opposite sides of Canada, the Kemano and James Bay projects have much in common. They are both related to the aluminum industry. Both were initiated without any consultation with the local people directly and negatively effected, and approved behind closed government doors. And both have extremely high environmental price tags--destructive consequences that far outweigh the energy they would produce. The parent projects, James Bay I and Kemano I, were dreamed up long before the environmental movement began in Canada, and decades before the concept of "sustainable development" was coined. Now we know the damage which these projects have caused--the true price tag of "cheap, clean" electricity.
Billie and Mina Weetaltuk and son Moses with the boat Odeyak in Albany, New York. Sixty-two Inuit and Cree from Great Whale River paddled Odeyak from Montreal to New York City for Earthday, April 1990, protesting the sale of James Bay electricity to the United States at the cost of their homelands.
The price of Kemano I, completed in the early 1950's, includes 800 sq. km. (200,000 acres) of flooded forest lands. The project turned a wildlife-rich area of beautiful lakes and streams into a reservoir filled with snags and deadheads, displaced an entire Cheslatta Indian Band, and severely impacted the Chinook salmon by decreasing the water flows in the Nechako River by nearly 40%.
James bay I, called "La Grande Project", began in the 1970's and is just now being completed. Its total reservoir area is about 14,000 sq. km., including 10,000 sq. km. of flooded land--an area more than ten times larger than that flooded by the Kemano I project. It has already severely impacted the Cree and Inuit people who depend on the wildlife that in turn need the sea ice, forested lands, and naturally flowing rivers.
One of the worst consequences of La Grande Project is the growing "plume" of mercury poisoning associated with the rotting vegetation under the reservoir waters, now moving out of the reservoirs and into James and Hudson Bays. No one knows how long this mercury contamination, for the most part an unforeseen spin-off of the project, will last or what its full, long-term environmental consequences will be. The government now admits that the mercury-contaminated fish are inedible, but who issues warnings to bears, seals, beluga whales and eagles and how are a people whose food, livelihood, culture and spirituality come directly from the land, going to survive?
Despite the obvious devastating environmental and social impacts of both James Bay I and Kemano I, government and industry are forging ahead with second phases in both projects.
Starting out as opponents in the B.C. courts, in 1987, Alcan and the Canadian government struck a private agreement allowing to further divert waters of the Nechako to double the company's power output. The project would leave only 13% of the original flow in the Nechako, the migratory route of about one-fifth of all the mighty Fraser River's sockeye run. It is estimated that the waters at Hell's Gate, currently one of the most difficult obstacles to migration, might be lowered by several feet at critical times of the year. The lowered flow of water will also increase the concentration of toxins discharged from pulp mills into the Fraser, posing additional threats to the river's fish.
The Alcan-government agreement is complex. It allows the private company the right to diminish much of the fishery in the Nechako as long as it "mitigates" the loss by producing an equal number of fish elsewhere. But no one really knows the full impact of the reduced flow of the Nechako on the Fraser River and its salmon runs. A hatchery operation can never adequately replace a wild salmon run. Any threat to the Nechako and Fraser Rivers is a threat to British Columbians. It is ironic that the ordinary citizens of British Columbia must raise funds to demand in court that the government obey its own law and undertake a full independent environmental assessment and review of Kemano Phase II.
"Canadians have to realize that environmental disasters don't only happens in the Brazilian rainforest. Hydroelectric development is destroying wildlife and killing my people and eventually, we will all be the victims."
Matthew Coon-Come, Grand Chief of the Grand Council of the Crees of Quebec
Environmental unknowns surround Quebec's James Bay II proposal as well. James Bay II involves two separate projects, one to the north of La Grande Project, called Great Whale and one to the south, called Nottaway-Broadback-Rupert. Both are huge, even in the world of megaprojects. In total they will cost an estimated 25 billion dollars. If completed, the entire James Bay project would be the largest hydroelectric project in the entire world, necessitating the diversion and impoundment of 20 major rivers, with combined reservoirs drowning forests and critical fish, wildlife and migratory bird habitats in an area the size of France. Combined with similar hydro developments in Ontario and Manitoba, the James Bay project is destroying the very nature of James and Hudson Bays, and the entire northern heartland of Canada.
With the permission of the federal government, the Quebec government recently split the necessary environmental review process for James Bay II into two stages, allowing reviews of the road to Great Whale and the dams and diversions to be conducted separately. This opens up the possibility that construction of the Great Whale road, and associated airports and buildings, will begin in January of 1991. The existence of this "infrastructure" and the "investment" it represents could then be used during the environmental review of the dams and diversions to force their acceptance.
In the province of Quebec, conservationists are fighting a nationalist agenda. Quebec's political leaders have played a major role in promoting both James Bay I and II, despite their high long-term dollar, human, and environmental costs, as the lever to Quebec's economic independence. But some economists predict that the cost of servicing the James Bay project's long-term debt alone will make the project an economic disaster.
We are learning as a species that money can't compensate for the loss of wildlife, dollars can't heal destroyed native cultures, and there is no way to effectively mitigate the damage caused by projects like Kemano and James Bay. Just as it took a world-wide outcry to halt the hydroelectric development in the Amazon, similar campaigns are needed to halt these equally devastating Canadian megaprojects.
A coalition of unions, fishermen, environmentalists and Indians has developed in British Columbia to oppose the Kemano II project in the courts. They need your support: Rivers Defense Coalition, P.O. Box 2781, Smithers, BC V0J 2N0
In Quebec, the Grand Council of the Cree is determined to stop the James Bay II project in court, and opposition is building amongst environmental groups within Quebec as well as the rest of Canada and the New England states. Contact and support: Grand Council of the Cree (Quebec), Bill Namagoose, Executive Director, 24 Bayswater Ave., Ottawa ON K1Y 2E4.
Open your heart, add your voice, and use your pen and pocketbook to help make sure these two life-destroying megaprojects die on the drawingboards.
