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A Hydro Project of Enormous Scale and Destruction |
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Hydro-Quebec’s assault on the Rupert and Eastmain Rivers is massive by any scale. Hydro-Quebec is in the process of building:
- Four huge dams on three different rivers;
- A massive 346 km2 (approx.135 square mile) reservoir – equal in size to flooding New Orleans.
- 75 dikes;
- A two-mile tunnel;
- Eight miles of channels;
- High voltage transmission corridors;
- Access roads, camps for construction workers
Helios Centre is an independent, non-profit energy research group based in Montreal. According to its June, 2006 paper Comments on Justification of the Eastmain-1-A / Rupert Diversion Project by Philip Raphals, Executive Director, “There is no need for the Project with respect either to Quebec’s needs or its energy security…” The report goes on to state that Hydro-Quebec has not adequately addressed alternatives to the project.
According to testimony during the environmental impact assessment hearings, the resulting environmental destruction will include:
- Massive fish kills and high levels of mercury contamination making fish unsafe to eat for almost 30 years;
- Major loss of habitat resulting in loss of wildlife essential to the Native Indian diet and lifestyle;
- Methane gas releases from turbines and decaying vegetation in flooded areas;
- Worsening winter air quality as seen in communities where rivers no longer freeze in winter.
“The diversion will add to the already enormous cumulative impacts of Hydro Quebec’s projects,” said Abraham Rupert, Chief of the Cree community at Chisasibi. “The last diversion made the eelgrass slowly disappear over the last 20 years, so now the geese which were a huge part of our food supply, no longer come to Chisasibi because their food supply is gone.” More than 3,000 residents of Chisasibi were forced to relocate in 1981 when Hydro-Quebec’s La Grande project threatened to flood the original town which had existed since 1837.
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