Innu band opposes Churchill power dams

Ekuanitshit says construction would have ‘severe adverse environmental impacts’

QUEBEC – A Quebec Innu band is asking Federal Court to invalidate the government’s decision to allow the construction of new hydro-electric dams on the Lower Churchill River in Labrador.

Last month, a step toward proceeding with the proposed $6.2-billion development was made when it passed federal and provincial environmental assessments. The first phase is building a new plant at Musk- rat Falls in central Labrador with the bulk of the power to be brought to Newfoundland.

The federal government also promised a loan guarantee to back the project.

The Innu of Ekuanitshit this week asked Federal Court to set aside the government decision to approve the project.

“My clients are concerned that permits that will be soon issued by federal departments and once those permits are issued, they’re good for a long time,” the group’s lawyer, David Schulze, said Thursday.

The band contends construction of the dam will have “severe adverse environmental impacts” on their ancestral territory that extends to the Churchill River, even if they now occupy a reserve at the mouth of the Romaine River in Quebec.

The Innu have been hunting the caribou in Labrador since “time immemorial,” said Chief Jean-charles Pietacho. “We hunt the caribou as a community regardless of borders which we did not create,” Pietacho said.

The Innu also charged the federal government largely ignored the advice of a review panel established by the federal and provincial governments to assess the Lower Churchill project environmental impact. In a report released in August 2011, the panel concluded that Nalcor, the Newfoundland and Labrador energy utility, did not provide enough information to justify the project “as a whole in energy and economic terms.”

“This is the weakest point in the federal decision-making process,” said Schulze. “They waited a few months and said the panel was wrong, that there was enough information. That’s just a preposterous decision,” the lawyer added.

And earlier in April, the province’s Public Utilities Board released another unfavourable report. The board said it does not have enough infor mation to reassure taxpayers the plan to transport hydro power from Muskrat Falls through an underwater cable to Newfoundland is the lowest-cost option to meet the province’s energy needs.

“They are throwing aside ethics for economics,” Pietacho said.

The lawyer for the Innu also said the band was not consulted by Nalcor, which reached deals with Labrador Innu nations.

Schulze stressed the Ekuanitshit Innu ought to be part of the consultation process because the federal government accepted in 1979 the use and occupation by the band of their territory in Labrador as a comprehensive land claim.

A spokeswoman for Nalcor declined to comment on the details of the legal action, but stressed the utility will oppose the motion in Federal Court.

Nalcor is finalizing commercial arrangements and confirming project cost and schedule before making a recommendation in the next few months to the provincial government on whether the Lower Churchill development should proceed, said spokeswoman Karen O’neill.

A debate on the issue is expected in the fall at the provincial legislature.