Editor’s note: This commentary is by Alexis Lathem and Shay Totten. Lathem, who has paddled 200 miles of the Lower Churchill River to Muskrat Falls, has reported on hydroelectric development in Quebec and Labrador since the mid 1990s. Her story on Hydro-Quebec’s Romaine River project — “Rage on, Sweet Romaine,” — appeared in Canada’s Alternatives Journal. Totten lives in Burlington and is the communications director for Rights & Democracy, a bi-state, grassroots advocacy organization working in communities throughout New Hampshire and Vermont.
[G]ov. Phil Scott likes to claim that Vermont’s longstanding relationship with Quebec is allowing the state to remain “energy independent” while at the same time thwarting in-state renewables.
He made this bold claim of energy independence with imported power from Hydro-Quebec most recently — and ironically — in front of attendees at the annual Renewable Energy Vermont conference. (Scott calls for ‘decency’ at energy forum, VTDigger)
Ironic because many in that room own or run Vermont-based renewable energy companies that Scott’s administration often opposes (especially wind power).
Someone should point out to Gov. Scott that power from megadams in Quebec is far from renewable given the damage it does to the people it displaces and toxins it releases; Quebec is in Canada, which despite its proximity to Vermont is a foreign country; and Vermont’s power, present and future, is in the hands of Gaz Métro, which owns both Green Mountain Power and Vermont Gas. We won’t even go into who actually owns Gaz Métro.
That’s not sounding all that clean or independent, governor.
But, clearly what is flowing southward from the megadams in Quebec is more than power and water.
Subsidized Canadian power companies in both Quebec and Newfoundland/Labrador are targeting new markets in the U.S., especially power hungry southern New England and New York. Multinational corporations are proposing a network of transmission corridors in Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont and New York to deliver the power hundreds of miles from remote areas of Canada. Hydro-Quebec has dozens of proposed dams in the works to supply the northeast United States’ insatiable appetite for energy.
State laws and programs too often classify electricity from these megadams as “clean” and say it helps stop climate change.
Not so.
Over the past several decades, Canada’s electricity companies have dammed all but three of the country’s largest rivers. Nalcor Corp.’s Muskrat Falls dam in Labrador, one of two proposed impoundment projects on the Grand River, also known as the Churchill River, is the focus of a current “MegaDams, MegaDamage” tour traveling throughout the region, and coming to Vermont on Dec. 4. The second proposed dam on the Grand River is called Gull Island. The Muskrat Falls project (also known as the Lower Churchill project) is currently under construction, and has been the focus of major protests – including hunger strikes and civil disobedience – for years with nary a peep of coverage from U.S. or Vermont media.
“Politicians and policymakers on both sides of the border should pursue energy alternatives that provide long-lasting local jobs with the least possible harm to our rivers, food sources and way of life, and that will not burden future generations with billions of dollars in costs. We are joining U.S.-based public interest groups to raise awareness that state laws and programs incentivizing and promoting destructive Canadian hydropower as ‘clean’ is not acceptable,” said Roberta Benefiel, Grand Riverkeeper Labrador, in announcing this multi-state tour.
The Muskrat Falls megadam threatens all Labradorians, but it is particularly harmful to the livelihood, wellbeing, and even the lives of the indigenous peoples of Labrador – the Innu, Inuit and Metis. Megadams flood huge swaths of boreal forest, wetlands and wildlife habitat, and destroy aquatic ecosystems. The flooding releases methylmercury, a neurotoxin, which bio-accumulates up the food chain contaminating lake trout, salmon, smelt and seal, all considered extremely important food sources for northern communities.
In 2009 a group of Harvard researchers studied the effects of impounding water behind the dam: They predicted a four-fold increase in mercury contamination from the Muskrat Falls reservoir. “Hundreds of Inuit individuals will be affected by this development,” said Harvard lead researcher Dr. Elsie Sunderland. The same Harvard researchers, in a study of dozens of dams proposed or under construction in Canada – which relies on hydropower for three-fifths of its electricity – found that 99 percent of these projects expose indigenous populations to unacceptable levels of methylmercury. More than 20 years have passed since the poisoning of the Cree sparked international outrage and charges of environmental racism, and yet the poisoning of aboriginals continues unabated.
The Muskrat Falls project will be connected to New England via a wildly expensive transmission corridor over hundreds of miles of land and sea, from Labrador to Newfoundland, through Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, to Massachusetts via the Atlantic Link. The brunt of the $12 billion (and rising) in costs will be shifted onto future generations, who will be paying for what may well be the most expensive hydropower in the world.
It seems a wildly extravagant, and destructive, route for Gov. Scott to endorse as a way to claim energy “independence” here at home.
