A Dam Dilemma

By debbie munson

Manitoba Hydro's Lake Winnipeg project, begun in the late 1960s, promised to be both an engineering marvel and a economic benefit to the surrounding Cree First Nations. Instead, Pimicikamak Vice Chief William Osbourne says it has introduced environmental and cultural harms to his people. Photo courtesy of JustEnergy

For William Osborne, the hardest part of the day is telling his children they have something to hope for.“As a father and leader,it’s very difficult for me to promise them there is a future, that there is hope.I feel like I am lying to them and I know it’s hard for them to believe me,” Osborne, 44, said of both his familial and official duties as Vice Chief of the Pimicikamak Cree Nation in Northern Manitoba. The Pimicikamak — pronounced pima-Chick-a-mack — traditionally have called the village of Cross Lake, and the surrounding miles of boreal forest, home. Osborne’s dilemma comes from his desire to see his children, and now grandchildren, benefit from life more than he did. In Cross Lake, that has become an increasingly difficult thing to guarantee.

When Osborne was only 20 years old, the land he calls Mother Earth underwent a dramatic change.

Twenty-five years later, he is still waiting to see the benefits of a hydroelectric project that was supposed to bring tangible rewards to his community.

In the late 1960s, Manitoba’s provinceowned energy utility, Manitoba Hydro, began to develop a massive engineering feat — to divert 85 percent of the Churchill River’s northern flow, joining it with the Nelson River to the south. The company then built a series of dams and generating stations along the Nelson from its head at Lake Winnipeg to its end at Hudson Bay.

Unlike typical hydro projects that flood deep mountain gorges or man-made reservoirs, water from the backed-up rivers spilled over onto 50,000 square miles of northern prairie and boreal forest, about one-quarter of Manitoba’s total land area.

In addition to developing the Nelson, Manitoba Hydro also manipulated Lake Winnipeg’s relationship with the river. The lake, which is the seventh largest freshwater lake in North America, became a holding tank for the re-engineered Nelson. During periods of high energy demand, a control station releases water into the river. When the demand is low, Lake Winnipeg’s natural outflow is contained.

With energy demand typically highest during the winter months, Manitoba Hydro reversed the seasonal flows of Lake Winnipeg and the Nelson, creating a power corridor that provides the entire province with electricity and then some; 40 percent of Manitoba Hydro’s electricity is exported to utility companies in the United States at a price that Osborne says does not reflect the environmental costs involved.

“My people are starting to realize this isn’t just about lights and warmth in the house. It’s about the energy market,” he said. “They are suffering so others can make money off of them.”

LASTING IMPACT

The environmental and social impacts resulting from the large-scale hydro project are undeniable. The thousands of acres of trees and vegetation now underwater are rotting and emitting the greenhouse gases carbon dioxide and methane. Soil containing natural mercury has eroded into the rivers and lakes, contaminating water and fish supplies with toxic methyl mercury.

Habitat previously used for hunting and trapping is flooded or has been destroyed by fluctuating water levels. High water flows during the winter have made travel across ice dangerous and in some cases fatal.

Dead, floating trees extend hundreds of feet from the shoreline, making lake and river access difficult. And, according to Osborne, traditional burial grounds have been flooded, washing away the sacred remains.

Osborne said he feels the subtle psychological impacts that affect his people’s ability to simply survive. The unemployment rate in Cross Lake is more than 85 percent, with most families relying on welfare checks for a monthly income. The community suffers from some of the highest alcoholism and suicide rates in the country.

“Water is the key to life, it doesn’t matter who you are,” Osborne said. “It affects everything: the survival of the people, the environment, the whole nation.”

TRIBAL STRIFE

At the heart of Cross Lake’s trouble is a document known as the NFA, the Northern Flood Agreement of 1977. Regarded by the Pimicikamak as an official treaty, the NFA was signed by Canada, Manitoba, and Manitoba Hydro — known as the “Crown Parties” — and five Cree First Nation communities, including the Pimicikamak of Cross Lake.

The NFA was designed to provide the five First Nation parties protection from the environmental and social harms associated with hydro projects. It also gave the affected parties the legal right to expect the mitigation and remedy of unavoidable impacts, like flooding and habitat destruction.

The agreement may be broad in scope, but it does state three specific goals and promises, including the guaranteed replacement of every flooded acre with four acres of undamaged land. The agreement also provided for the monetary compensation of lost hunting, fishing and trapping profits and the eradication of mass poverty and unemployment in the affected communities.

“This agreement is one of a kind, there is nothing like it in the world,” Osborne said. “But the three major issues have not been resolved and my people have been waiting patiently for 25 years. My people have died waiting to see the benefits of the NFA.”

Manitoba Hydro maintains that the NFA has successfully provided for impacts related to the hydro project. Company documents state that more than $50 million has been spent on Cross Lake programs and mitigation alone, and that 3,279 loss and damages claims filed by community members have been settled.

“We feel we have dealt fairly with Cross Lake. We have tried to compensate for any changes caused by the project, but people tend to be idealistic about the majesty of cultures built on living off the land,” said Glenn Schneider, spokesperson for Manitoba Hydro. Schneider said that the general public doesn’t have much knowledge about northern Manitoba and that there is a 30-year history that needs to be closely examined.

“We understand why people are sympathetic, and we realize that there certainly were impacts on the communities. But the effects on wildlife tend to be temporary. The animals don’t sit there and drown when the water levels rise. They adapt,” he said.

Schneider also said that the Pimicikamak were compensated for the relocation of traplines, although he held that hunting and trapping difficulties are not at the root of economic woes in Cross Lake.

“Fishing and trapping are not sufficient for the modern lifestyle that the Pimicikamak want and deserve,” Schneider said. “But they will have to go to the federal government for help with social issues like unemployment and poverty. Other aboriginal communities in northern Manitoba have the same problems, even where the environment has not been impacted.”

Kate Kempton, legal counsel to the Pimicikamak, says this is just a corporate excuse for adding to the historical disadvantage of aboriginal communities in the region.

The province-owned utility was not required to conduct an environmental assessment of northern Manitoba before beginning construction of the hydro project. The environmental regulations that exist today did not apply to Manitoba Hydro’s developments in the 1970s. The baseline data that would have been collected in an environmental survey does not exist, putting the Pimicikamak at a major disadvantage when they file NFA claims. It also affects the ease with which utility companies in the United States can import Manitoba Hydro’s electricity, because documentation of the environmental, social and economic costs is not available.

The re-engineering of the Nelson River took place at a time when American’s were becoming more aware of the potential environmental harms associated with hydroelectric power.

“There is no doubt that construction of dams in the United States had devastating effects on top species in the Colorado and Columbia rivers. But on the Nelson, and in Cross Lake, the top species at risk is people,” said Dr. Steve Hoffman, professor of political science and environmental studies at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minn.

Hoffman, author of the 2002 report “Powering Injustice: Hydroelectric Development in Northern Manitoba,” also serves as an adviser to the St. Paul-based public interest group Minnesotans for an Energy-Efficient Economy, known as ME3.

“There truly is a cultural void when tribal leaders are talking about solving a problem in the abstract and the company talks in western economic terms,” he said. “The history and way of life of the Pimicikamak is completely unknowable to the company.”

TO THE COURTS

Last December, the Pimicikamak took their cause to the United States, requesting a contested case hearing in front of the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission. A hearing of this sort is a fact-building procedure in front of an administrative judge, who then reports any recommendations to the PUC. The timing of the Pimicikamak request came as Minneapolis-based Xcel Energy was finalizing a 10-year, 500 megawatt energy trade agreement with Manitoba Hydro. According to state law, it is the responsibility of the PUC to consider the environmental, social and economic costs associated with the importation of energy.

The environmental consequences of Manitoba Hydro's Lake Winnipeg project are evident in fluctuating water levels, as rivers and lakes alternately flood or dry up (above). The company's dams are blamed for the erosion of thousands of miles of shoreline, where debris often collects (below). Photos courtesy of JustEnergy

Xcel Energy, formed by a 2000 merger of Denver-based New Century Energies with Minnesota’s Northern States Power Company, estimates that 12 percent of its energy is purchased from Manitoba Hydro.

According to a company spokesperson, the imported energy serves customers in five of Xcel’s 12 midwestern states: Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wisconsin and Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.

On Dec. 19, the Minnesota PUC denied the Pimicikamak Cree Nation’s request for a hearing and approved the new trade agreement between Xcel and Manitoba Hydro. In the unanimous decision, the PUC noted that the dispute should be handled by Manitoba and the Canadian government, through implementation of the Northern Flood Agreement.

“There is a flaw in the PUC regulations,” Pimicikamak lawyer Kate Kempton said about the decision. “The impacts of hydro projects are not well understood or taken into consideration. The PUC looks at things like air emissions from coal, instead of the damages of hydro development on watersheds, forests, shorelines and entire ecosystems.”

But Xcel Energy says the obvious benefits of hydro power are being overlooked.

“Having the trade agreement between Xcel and Manitoba Hydro has made it possible to avoid building a new coal plant here in Minnesota,” said Ed Legge, company spokesperson. Legge said the PUC demands Xcel to balance power production and purchases on a three-legged stool of affordability, reliability and environmental responsibility.

“If we didn’t purchase the energy, the environmental impacts would still continue,” he said. “The energy will just be sold to someone else and in the end could be sold to Xcel through a third party.”

Ken Bradley, coordinator of the Just Energy campaign — part of Minnesotans for an Energy-Efficient Economy — says that type of reasoning is ridiculous.

“Does that mean we should be able to buy crack, because if we don’t the dealer will just sell it elsewhere?” Bradley said.

“No, that still doesn’t make it right to buy it, or to sell it for that matter.”

Bradley is working to bring a fact-finding delegation to Cross Lake. He said the delegation will attempt what the PUC refused to do in December: to gather the facts and conduct a comprehensive environmental impact statement about hydroelectric projects in northern Manitoba.

“The general public needs to be educated about the effects of hydro power, and about the possibilities of sustainable, clean energy like wind. Any changes by Xcel at this point will have to come from a consumer driven campaign,” Bradley said.

WAITING FOR THE WINDFALL

While Bradley’s Just Energy campaign attempts to educate the public, the residents at Cross Lake are still searching for a way to receive the benefits they have been waiting for since 1977.

When the NFA was signed, five Cree Nations were involved. Now, four of those nations have entered into Master Implementation Agreements with Manitoba Hydro, plans the Pimicikamak call “buy-out agreements.” Critics of the agreements see them as a way for Manitoba Hydro to get the Cree out of the way, once and for all.

“These are short-term contracts that are capped,” said lawyer Kate Kempton. Once an implementation agreement is signed, she said, the community cannot expect anything more from Manitoba Hydro. A lump sum of cash is paid to the Cree Nation and any legal rights that the Northern Flood Agreement guaranteed become void.

“The Pimicikamak have resisted entering into a buy-out agreement because they regard the NFA as a treaty,” Kempton said.

“Treaties are the basis of their culture, they are seen as an ongoing relationship of respect. They do not see this as a disagreement that has to be solved, but as an agreement made in good faith by all parties.”

Osborne says the Pimicikamak relationship with Manitoba Hydro is not based on money, but on respect for Mother Earth and the spirit of the NFA.

“Look at the recent war in Iraq and the devastation caused by bombing. That country will need rebuilding, not with a lump sum of money, but with a plan,” Osborne said. “We have that plan in the NFA, and eventually the Crown Parties will do what needs to be done.”

RESOLUTION ON THE HORIZON

After years of public relations and legal battles — the most recent being the Minnesota PUC decision — Manitoba Hydro and the provincial government agreed to stop negotiating a possible implementation agreement for Cross Lake. Instead, last December — 25 years after the NFA was signed — the two Crown Parties and the Pimicikamak entered a 15-month action plan. The plan, which began Jan. 1, will begin to administer the promises Cross Lake residents have been waiting for. As part of the PUC’s decision, Xcel Energy will monitor the action plan and report to the commission on any developments.

Legal counsel Kate Kempton said she believes the new action plan is a positive development, but that much more is needed in the way of compensation, mitigation and remedies for the Pimicikamak.

“Twenty-five years of damage cannot be rectified in 15 months,” she said.

The first step of the plan involves building a bridge that the Cross Lake community has requested for years. The bridge will be constructed across a waterway near the village where navigating the ice in winter is dangerous because water levels, related to the opening and closing of the Lake Winnipeg control structure, can change dramatically.

The plan also calls for the clean up of debris and trees that are clogging waterways, and the implementation of community programs that support traditional activities like hunting, fishing and trapping.

“We are not going to give up, we will continue to hold the fire to their feet,” Vice Chief Osborne said. “This plan just proves that you can eat an elephant. You just have to do it one bite at a time.”

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