Manitoba Hydro & Megadams

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Sun, 2018-11-25 11:35

epaulo13

Manitoba’s hydro mess points to Canada’s larger problem with megadams

For eight years, Graham Lane headed a watchdog commission that raised red flag after red flag about the Keeyask dam hydro project on Manitoba’s Nelson River.

Politicians ignored the warnings and in 2012 Lane resigned as chair of Manitoba’s Public Utilities Board, concerned that Manitoba Hydro had strayed far from its main purpose — to provide low cost energy to Manitobans.

Now the retired chartered accountant is speaking out in the hopes of stemming the losses from the Keeyask dam project and a related transmission line, which he calls “an albatross around the necks of Manitobans.”

“In Manitoba basically everything has gone wrong,” Lane told The Narwhal. “It’s quite a disaster.”

Even though the utilities board kept flagging “runaway expenses and changing markets” as reasons to reassess the projects, Lane said the provincial government “just kept going” while the price tag for the dam and transmission line soared from $9.8 billion to almost $14 billion, with the dam’s final cost potentially $2 billion more.

“I’d had enough. I hung up my skates. I waited my year away. And then I started writing columns about it.”....

Sun, 2018-11-25 11:44

epaulo13

..more frome the above piece

quote:

‘Vast majority of Canadians don’t even know what Keeyask is’

The lesser known Keeyask dam joins B.C.’s Site C dam and Labrador’s Muskrat Falls dam on the list of hugely over budget big hydro projects currently under construction in Canada.

“Keeyask seems to fly beneath the radar,” said Garland Laliberte, a dean of engineering emeritus at the University of Manitoba. “Muskrat Falls gets a lot of exposure and even Site C gets more coverage. I think the vast majority of Canadians don’t even know what Keeyask is let alone what problems it’s causing in this province.”

Four years into construction 730 kilometres northeast of Winnipeg, the Keeyask dam will inundate 93 square kilometres of the Nelson River and boreal taiga lands or “snow forests” of pine, spruce and larch. It will destroy spawning areas and other habitat for fish such as sturgeon and result in habitat loss, alteration and fragmentation for caribou, moose and beaver.

Like the Muskrat Falls and Site C dams, the Keeyask project will also have a significant impact on Indigenous peoples, eliminating trapping, fishing and hunting sites in the traditional territory of Treaty 5 nations. The dam, which will be built at Gull Rapids, is named after the Cree word for gull.

With three large dams in the works, Canada is bucking the trend in Europe and North America, where the unacceptable price tag and profound social and environmental impacts of large hydro projects means that more big dams are being dismantled than are being built.

Laliberte said the global energy market has changed far faster than Canada’s politicians realized, as the price of wind and solar energy plummets, new energy storage options become available and the cost of building large hydro dams soars, in part because of hefty payouts to affected Indigenous communities.

Manitoba Hydro, for instance, has paid $169 million to First Nations who will be impacted by the project and is expected to pay out another $100 million.

“I think the main driver is politicians not understanding the market and thinking that it’s good to be seen to be investing, in all three cases, in renewable energy and thinking it’s going to fly,” Laliberte said in an interview.

“And our politicians were too busy doing other things and they believed that the market doesn’t change. And, of course what happened is that the speed of change now is so much greater than it was even 10 years ago and these guys went out on a limb and they got caught.”

Tue, 2019-01-29 15:38

epaulo13

Sexual assault investigations at hydroelectric project alarming: chief

The grand chief who represents First Nations in northern Manitoba says it's alarming that RCMP have investigated nine sexual assault allegations at one power station construction site.

Garrison Settee expects the number could be higher, but says many Indigenous people do no report to police because other alleged assaults linked to Manitoba Hydro projects weren't taken seriously.

RCMP said last week that officers have conducted nine sexual assault investigations since 2015 at the Keeyask Generating Station and four resulted in charges.

Three other individuals declined to press charges and in two cases the alleged victims declined to participate in the investigation.

Manitoba Hydro says employees who were charged have had their site access to Keeyask revoked.

A report released last year by the province's Clean Environment Commission — an arm's-length review agency — outlined discrimination and sexual abuse at Manitoba Hydro work sites in the 1960s and 1970s.

The report said the arrival of a largely male construction workforce led to the sexual abuse of Indigenous women. Some alleged their complaints to RCMP were ignored. The report also said there was racial tension, environmental degradation and an end to the traditional way of life for some Indigenous people.

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"I question why it takes this long for Indigenous people's issues to be addressed in a way that is fair," he said Monday. "All of these things in other societies are dealt with immediately and dealt with to the fullest extent of the law, but that has not been afforded to our people."

Manitoba Hydro did not comment on the details of any investigations, but spokesman Bruce Owen said in an email that the Crown utility does not tolerate illegal or exploitative behaviour.

Owen pointed to multiple company policies and initiatives, including working with Tracia's Trust, a Manitoba strategy to address sexual exploitation and to curb harassment and discrimination.

Sustainable Development Minister Rochelle Squires has called the allegations in the commission's report disturbing and said she referred the issue to the RCMP.

Another report, released in 2017 and looking specifically into the Keeyask station's workplace culture, found discrimination and harassment targeting Indigenous employees.

One employee said they were being sexually harassed, but were too afraid to do anything because of retaliation.

The four First Nations which are part of the Keeyask Hydroelectric Limited Partnership have repeatedly raised concerns about sexual violence at hydro development sites. York Factory First Nation Chief Leroy Constant has called for an inquiry into Manitoba Hydro's development in the north.

Tue, 2021-10-26 16:15

epaulo13

State of erosion: the legacy of Manitoba Hydro

For five decades, hydroelectric development has altered the lives and landscapes fed by the Nelson River in the province's north. The Keeyask dam, the sixth to modify the river's course, is scheduled to come online in 2021

Ninety-seven per cent of energy produced in Manitoba comes from hydroelectricity. The vast majority of that energy comes from a string of dams on the Nelson River system in the province’s north. There, a sixth mega dam, known as the Keeyask, is under construction to provide electricity for export to the United States.

Manitoba’s hydroelectric dams have always been marketed as clean, renewable energy. And yet, these projects have massively transformed the province’s northern ecosystems, impacting the culture, lives and livelihoods of Indigenous communities.

After decades of undertaking hydroelectric development without Indigenous consent, Manitoba Hydro offered to partner with four Cree First Nations whose traditional territories will be impacted by the Keeyask dam.

The Tataskweyak, Fox Lake, York Factory and War Lake nations signed on to an agreement with Manitoba Hydro that sets aside 25 per cent of the project for “potential” ownership by the First Nations.

The arrangement has divided these communities, driving a wedge between those attracted to the promises of new industry and those wary of the impacts of development. Many who voted in favour of the partnership agreement said they were told, and believed, the Keeyask dam would be built with or without their cooperation.

Since 2012, the price tag for the dam and transmission line has grown from $9.8 billion to almost $14 billion, while the price of electricity has dropped in the U.S. due to an uptick in fracking. The profitability of the dam has been undercut, affecting the likelihood of local First Nations benefitting from the project.

This is of direct concern for the Tataskweyak Cree Nation, located 60 kilometres upstream of the new dam. Impeded by a critical housing shortage, high unemployment, the trauma of youth suicide and a drug crisis — all within the context of a long-term boil water advisory — the community will face the compounding impacts of the Keeyask dam as water levels begin to rise.

But the Tataskweyak are not alone in their experience.

This collection of photos explores the reality of hydroelectric development in northern Manitoba within the broader devastation of Canada’s ongoing history of environmental colonialism.....

Jonathan Kitchekeesik, from the community of Tataskweyak First Nation, collects plants for medicinal tea on an island in Gull Lake, which was recently flooded during the impoundment of the Keeyask dam in September 2020. Kitchekeesik participated in the environmental assessment for the Keeyask project and was one of the members of his community to support the dam, believing it would provide good jobs. But more recently, he has begun to speak critically about the project and worries fellow Tataskweyak Nation members have become spiritually sick because of the community’s involvement in the dam. “We have funerals every week. Something is going on. I think we are being punished for what we did.”

Tue, 2021-10-26 16:25

epaulo13

..i'm posting these but many more available.

Caleb shows off his catch on a beach that is now lost to permanent flood waters from the impoundment of the Keeyask dam in August 2020.

Children play on the roof of an old cabin in the community of Cross Lake, home to the Pimicikamak Cree Nation. In 1977 Cross Lake and four other First Nations signed the Northern Flood Agreement with Manitoba Hydro and the Government of Canada for compensation for the impacts of Lake Winnipeg regulation and diversion of the Churchill River. The broad agreement, which would last the life of the projects, stipulated that Manitoba Hydro and the federal government would offer economic stimulus to the communities and seek “the eradication of mass poverty and mass unemployment.” The agreement went unfulfilled by the province and Canada until four of the five First Nations settled on new agreements with large cash payments in the 1990s. To this day Cross Lake has refused to enter into any new agreements and continues to advocate for the implementation of the Northern Flood Agreement.

Thu, 2021-10-28 14:39

epaulo13

Court rules Feds did not consult with Peguis on Manitoba-Minnesota transmission project

The Federal Court has ruled the federal government did not conduct sufficient consultation with Peguis First Nation prior to the construction of the Manitoba-Minnesota Transmission Project.

The project was geared to make the export of power to the U.S. easier. The $490 million project has been completed and has been in operation since June 2020.

“There is no indication in the (Crown Consultation and Accommodation Report) that Canada actually met with Peguis to discuss their outstanding concerns,” said Justice Glennys McVeigh in her Sept. 24 ruling.

As the line is already up and running, the judge was not willing to shut it down or revoke Hydro’s license to export energy, as it was the federal government that was at fault. She said the best remedy she could exercise was a declaration of the facts, that “Canada did not adequately discharge its duty to consult.”

She further said she hopes Canada will complete further consultation with Peguis and determine if any accommodation is necessary.

quote:

Both Manitoba Hydro and Crown Services said they were reviewing the ruling.

Thu, 2021-10-28 14:57

epaulo13

Scientists, First Nations Say Hydropower is Not Clean Energy

“A critic of hydropower says politicians often make “vacuous statements about a particular energy source being clean, but that is not the case.”
The Nation Anishnabe of Lac Simon in Quebec, seen here, says that hydropower dams and associated infrastructure have robbed the Anishnabe people of resources and their way of life.

The New England Clean Energy Connect (NECEC), a proposed $1.2 billion joint transmission project between Hydro-Québec and Avangrid has been advertised by its developers as a way to bring clean and responsible energy to the U.S. under a 20-year deal.

The 1,200 MW transmission line would funnel hydropower power from Canada to the U.S. Northeast. But scientific evidence has shown that emissions from hydroelectric dams are greater than emissions from wind power, natural gas and in some cases, coal facilities.

Politicians too often make “vacuous statements about a particular energy source being clean, but that is not the case,” Gary Wockner, executive director and co-founder of Save The World’s Rivers, told NetZero Insider. Hydroelectric power plants can be as bad as natural gas, according to a 2016 study published in Bioscience. Another study published in Environmental Science and Technology found that in some cases, hydroelectric power plants are worse for the climate than coal. [Editor’s Note: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that the Bioscience study had compared hydropower emissions to coal.]

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Hydro and First Nations

In addition to methane, reservoirs release methylmercury in the soil, poisoning the water and wildlife.

The methylmercury poisoning directly affects First Nations, which rely on regional natural food sources. Hydroelectric dams have disrupted and disturbed millennia-old migratory patterns of fish and other wildlife that make up food webs for the First Nations.

In June 2019, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on human rights and hazardous substances and wastes, Baskut Tuncak, called on the Canadian federal government to use its leverage to address concerns about lack of proper consultation with Indigenous people as well as the expected methylmercury poisoning.

Mon, 2022-02-21 15:18

epaulo13

York Factory First Nation wants to update financial terms of Joint Keeyask Development Agreement between partner First Nations and Manitoba Hydro

One of the four First Nations that signed an agreement with Manitoba Hydro on the development of the Keeyask generating station says the terms should be updated to ensure benefits are realized.

York Factory First Nation (YFFN), which signed the Joint Keeyask Development Agreement (JKDA) with Manitoba Hydro alongside Tataskweyak Cree Nation, Fox Lake Cree Nation and War Lake First Nation, said in a Feb. 11 press release that financial returns promised by the construction of the 695 megawatt hydroelectric generating station are unlikely to materialize and that the agreement should be renegotiated to ensure economic benefits for the Keeyask partners.

“York Factory and our partner First Nations reached out to Manitoba Hydro and the province of Manitoba this fall,” said YFFN Chief Leroy Constant. “We are calling on the province of Manitoba to commit to work with us to update the JKDA and make sure that First Nations will see long-term benefits from Crown-led resource development in their territories,”

The agreement was signed 13 years ago and construction of Keeyask is set to be completed soon. Constant said the JKDA has become a lopsided deal that guarantees more than $100 million in annual water rental and other fees to the provincial government but has brought the Indigenous partners problems, such as increased COVID-19 pandemic risks due to the movement in and out of workers, that outweigh the benefits of contracts and employment. The cost of building the dam rose substantially beyond what was originally projected, Constant says, while the economic forecast and expected export revenues have declined.

He also said that gender and racial discrimination at the project site has been brushed off by the Crown corporation as cultural awareness issues and that the First Nations are not treated as true partners.

“Relationships in the Keeyask Board have been strained: we have been outvoted; Manitoba Hydro representatives have walked out of our partnership meetings; and we have been treated with closed and muted Zoom screens during meetings of the partnership,” Constant said. “With Manitoba Hydro as project manager and majority decision-maker, our actual ‘say’ and promised ability to direct the project has been virtually non- existent.”

Constant also said that the project has just become another chapter in Manitoba’s history of First Nations being negatively impacted by hydroelectric developments on their traditional territories while others reap the economic rewards.....