Hydropower:
Not Green, Not Cheap, Not Clean
» When I was a young girl, my father took my brother John and I up Grand River to collect a canoe that he had left there that winter. I remember the bright and glorious morning of our departure. The sunshine was glinting off the snow like a million sparkling diamonds. Our warm breath formed clouds as we scampered around with the crunching of the crisp snow under our sealskin boots. We helped load the komatik (sled) and fetched harnesses as the dogs strained on their chains in joyful anticipation. Dad always kept a team of eight or ten white huskies. They loved to go on trips, and in “them days,” as we say in Labrador, they were our only mode of transportation in winter. Mom fussed around making sure we did not forget candles, guns, ammunition and matches. There were no corner stores in the vast wilderness we called home.
With the dogs hitched to the komatik we were off and running, slinging to the lashings for dear life so we would not fall off. On a command of ‘auch, auch’ the lead dog would turn right, ‘etta, etta’ left and ‘a-a-ah’ stop. We never heard the ‘mush’ of American movie lore.
In the week that followed we crept along the shores of the Grand River, around the rifted ice at the foot of Muskrat Falls. We slept in a tent with a warm glow from the stove, which Dad kept stoked through the night. Outside, the hoot of an occasional horned owl interrupted an otherwise silent world, while a brilliant moon cast long shadows. In the early morning the purple hills were greeted by the rising sun and the huge expanse of the river was peppered with partridges, which provided our supper. Other times, we cut holes in the ice and caught a few trout or set rabbit snares. This memory of my childhood reflects a way of life gone forever, as soon could the river that nurtured it.
The Grand River, known by the Innu People as Mishta Shipu or Big River, is the province’s longest river and largest watershed, draining 93,415 square kilometers (36,000 square miles). It starts at the head of Ashuanipi Lake, drops over Grand Falls, broadens into Winokapau Lake and then twists through a deeply incised glacial gorge past my hometown, Happy Valley-Goose Bay, before flowing into Lake Melville and eventually Groswater Bay. It is certainly the most historic river in Labrador. A 4,000-5,000-year old Maritime Archaic site was found near Mud Lake. It has been traversed by the Innu First Nations people for eons. Fur traders in the 19th century established posts along the river’s route to trade with the Innu. It sustained my family for generations, and even today my kitchen window gives me a view of this magnificent waterway where it is one mile wide. It is my river. It is my home.
Where the river once thundered down Bowdoin Canyon the mist and roar from Grand Falls could be seen and heard from 20 miles away. Today this is the site of the Upper Churchill Hydropower Project. The falls are now a trickle. At the start of construction in 1966 Upper Churchill Project — a series of dykes, spillways and control structures to impound the water– was the largest civil engineering project ever undertaken in North America. It produces 5,225 megawatts of power, the bulk of which is sold to Québec in a very lopsided 65-year contract greatly favouring that province. Hydro Québec in turn sells that power to the eastern seaboard of the United States and reaps the lion’s share — 96 percent — of the profits.
My father’s trapping grounds are now underwater. No one ever approached him for permission or compensation. He was never given an opportunity to retrieve his traps, canoe or anything else left behind. I’ve also heard a story from an old Innu man and his family who were travelling to their traditional hunting grounds in the interior and instead found a vast, previously unknown sea. The Smallwood Reservoir, created by the project, is the third largest man-made lake in the world, inundating 2,589 square miles.
In 1998 Premier Brian Tobin of Newfoundland and Premier Lucien Bouchard of Québec announced another project in our watershed. The Lower Churchill Hydroelectric Project — a $12 billion hydroelectric plan involving two salmon rivers (La Romaine and the St. Jean) in Québec and the Grand River in Labrador. The proposal included the construction of two large dams on the lower part of Grand River which will essentially convert most of the remaining free-flowing river into reservoirs. The Grand Riverkeeper first came together as Friends of Grand River/Mishta Shipu, a local citizens’ organization to stop this project.
There were no public hearings prior to the announcement of the plan and Aboriginal land claims in the region were not addressed. It was déjà vu all over again and we knew we needed help. Friends of Grand River first heard of Waterkeeper Alliance when they were involved with the James Bay Cree First Nation in a successful effort to stop another massive dam proposal, the Great Whale Project, in Québec. Daniel LeBlanc, then the Petitcodiac Riverkeeper, and Susan Casey-Lefkowitz of NRDC encouraged us to explore the possibility of becoming the Grand Riverkeeper. In June 2005 we did just that with Roberta Frampton Benefiel sharing the helm of the organization.
Grand Riverkeeper Labrador advocates NO MORE DAMS. We also advocate for energy conservation, renewable sources of energy, as well as alternatives to hydropower for economic development — all of which must be ecologically sustainable.
The Newfoundland and Labrador government is pressing forward with the Lower Churchill Project while Québec has independently begun construction of a dam on the La Romaine River. The two proposed dams on the Grand River are the most serious and imminent threat in our watershed. Visionary thinking and support at the local, provincial, national and international level are necessary to stop these projects. We are a very small population with little clout at the ballot box. Our best hope is to bring pressure to bear from without.
We are spreading the word and preparing to fight. Each year we sponsor a ten-day canoe trip on the river, we have formed coalitions with other environmental groups and we have opened dialogue with Canadian Heritage Rivers aimed at designating the Grand as a heritage river for its cultural and historic values. In November we invited Dr. Martha Kostuch to conduct a workshop aimed at developing an action plan to protect our river. Dr. Kostuch, a well-known environmental activist from Alberta, is probably best known for challenging the government for breaking its own laws and winning a precedent-setting Supreme Court of Canada decision. Now we are preparing to get involved with the environmental assessment process, which, without Dr. Kostuch’s tenacity and determination, might otherwise not be happening.
Draft Environmental Impact Statement Guidelines for the Lower Churchill Hydroelectric Generation Project have been released for public comment. In January 2008 Grand Riverkeeper Labrador hosted public information sessions with the help of a number of eminent water quality, economics and environmental experts from around Canada. These sessions took place during one of this winter’s coldest snaps. The last information session was held in Mud Lake where one third of the population turned out, including all five school children. Afterwards we were invited to stay for a “mug-up” — hot tea and coffee, sandwiches, cakes and cookies carefully laid out on a pretty tablecloth while we lumbered around in our snow pants and clumsy skidoo boots.
The citizens of Labrador are beginning to understand just how dangerous and damaging the damming of the Lower Grand River would be. Mud Lake, for instance, is located on the south side of the river and has no road access. The river is the residents’ highway. They worry that warm water coming out of the turbines at Muskrat Falls, just 20 miles upstream, might make for dangerous ice conditions in winter and that sedimentation might prevent boat navigation in summer. Grand River was formed by a geological fault, so they also worry that seismic activity could cause the dams to fail. There is no evidence that dam proponents have considered emergency evacuation planning. Some youth at our Northwest River session observed that damage of this magnitude caused by nature would be called a disaster but in this case we are calling it development.
From a Grand Riverkeeper Labrador perspective there should be no more dams. The proposal before us will develop hydroelectricity for export while Labrador’s coastal communities continue to pay exorbitantly high electricity bills for diesel generation. The dams will bring a construction job boom. But the region will be left with the bust, and the environmental consequences, forever.
Hydroelectricity is not green, it is not cheap, it is not clean and plans for new dams must be stopped on Mishta Shipu, the Big River, the Grand River.
The Economics of the Lower Churchill Hydroelectric Project
The primary reason for the push to develop hydropower on the Grand River is the promised windfall for Newfoundland and Labrador from the sale of electricity to the New England and Ontario markets. But determining the economic viability of the project is not straightforward. Any economic analysis of the project must include the ecological, social and cultural costs, including the loss of species, heritage sites and traditional ways of life. Why is this important? If these nonmarket impacts are not monetized, ‘priceless’ environmental and cultural assets will be assigned a value of zero in the economic analysis. That will make the project look more economically attractive that it really is.
The provincial governments behind these dams promote them as a way to generate hard currency from the river. But the revenue stream may never materialize. Historically it was possible to lock in long-term contracts for the sale of electricity. Forty years ago Newfoundland and Labrador locked into a 65-year contract to supply Hydro Quebec electricity from the Upper Churchill dam. But long-term electricity contracts are a thing of the past; most electricity entering the grid in major markets is sold in hourly auctions. Revenues decades in the future will depend on market conditions that are unknowable today. Because of the time lag and enormous upfront costs, the real financial viability of the project will probably be unclear for 25 or more years.
Another major selling point for Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro is that power from the proposed Lower Churchill Project will displace electricity from coal-fired generating stations. This is optimistic for two reasons. First, bringing additional power into an insatiable North American market may simply lead to higher power consumption. Second, if cheap hydroelectric power does come to market, it still may not displace dirty energy from the grid. Power from fossil fuel plants is cheap compared to cleaner power alternatives. If Lower Churchill hydroelectric power were to come to market at a competitive price, cleaner energy (which tends to be more expensive) would be displaced from the market first.
There is also a question of ‘opportunity costs.’ The billions of dollars invested in the Lower Churchill could be better invested in other things. Research has shown time and again that education is one of society’s best long-term investments. What would happen if even ten percent of the Lower Churchill development costs were diverted to education? And if the Province does need to invest in power projects, why not invest in wind or ocean wave energy technologies and develop a competitive advantage with renewable resources that are abundant in the Province?
Damming the Grand River is a one way proposition; there will be no decommissioning the dams if we find out later that we’ve been mistaken about the economics of the project. The financial, environmental and social costs of dams are all incurred up front. A superficial economic analysis is a recipe for irrevocable ecological and cultural loss on the Grand River. It is imperative that a comprehensive economic analysis be undertaken and that it tackles the crucial issues, and captures the true costs to all Canadians, using state of the art methodology and economics best practices.
Muskrat Falls, site of a proposed dam.
Clarice Blake Rudkowski