Protest over Manitoba hydroelectric project continues; Hydro says work continues – CP

Source: The Canadian Press
Jan 26, 2015 19:51

SWAN RIVER, Man. _ Manitoba Hydro crews have started cutting another section of the Bipole III transmission line in an effort to avoid a confrontation with First Nation protesters.

“It’s a 200-kilometre stretch and there’s a lot of area for us to work on and we’re going to continue to do it,” Hydro spokesman Scott Powell said Monday of the area south of The Pas.

Sapotaweyak Cree Nation set up two teepees, one which is visible from Highway 10, on the weekend to stop work crews from cutting the corridor through Crown land claimed under treaty land entitlement.

A Court of Queen’s Bench ruling on Jan. 14 denied Sapotaweyak Cree Nation’s bid for an injunction to halt the work.

Bipole III is a $4.6-billion high-voltage direct current transmission line to back up existing lines and add capacity to the grid. Some 1,384 kilometres long, it is to run along the west side of Lake Manitoba, from its start near Gilliam to its finish at a future converter station to be located east of Winnipeg.

To protest this section of it, about 30 people set up two teepees south of The Pas where the proposed route crosses Highway 10. Another Treaty 4 First Nation also set up a third teepee. The three teepees are set up at different locations along the line.

Hydro officials tried to reach the chief over the weekend without response, so Hydro sent a letter Monday to the First Nation’s government offices in an attempt to resolve the impasse.

“We’ve left at least two messages for the chief to phone us and they haven’t returned our calls and we’ve reached out to the protesters themselves,” Powell said.

“It’s hard to engage if they don’t want to talk to us.”

Chief Nelson Genaille has said the band wants to keep its traditional treaty land as it is.

From the site, the chief related an unproductive exchange that took place Sunday with two Hydro workers who stopped by the camp’s sacred fire.

“They asked how long before we left. I asked them, ‘When are you going to leave?’, and an elder said to them, ‘Where are you going to send us?’, the chief said.

The exchange didn’t go much further, the chief said.

Powell noted that as far back as 2008, Hydro’s efforts to engage Sapotaweyak on this stretch of transmission line have been repeatedly rebuffed. Not even a decision by the Clean Environment Commission to award the First Nation a grant so they could afford to take part in hearings managed to win their participation, Powell said.

To complicate the issue, the same stretch of corridor is also claimed by the province’s Metis, who supplied crews to cut the corridor.

(Winnipeg Free Press)

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