Michael Friis Johansen

Nalcor doing more than it says

by MICHAEL JOHANSEN

 

   At six o'clock the sudden explosion erupted and split the peaceful Thanksgiving Saturday evening without any warning, so large and loud the blast was heard many kilometers away from where it was set off, at Muskrat Falls.

   That's the sound of Nalcor exercising prudence in central Labrador.

   It wasn't the first such explosion heard in the hills along the lower Grand River in the past few weeks and it won't be the last. Nalcor is not just clearing forest, cutting access roads and stringing electrical lines to the possible construction site, as Gilbert Bennett, the company's vice-president in charge of responding to the nattering classes, often claims. Nalcor is also expanding old quarries and opening several new ones on both sides of the river. The company is already running dozens of dump trucks to stockpile large mounds of gravel beside where the dams are supposed to go.

   If Bennett responds this time he will no doubt repeat his standard line that undertaking this quarry work prematurely (work he somehow failed to mention) is somehow the prudent this to do, that the $243-million Nalcor has freely spent this year will somehow save it an undetermined amount of money next year. Bennett's argument is wearing extremely thin, especially since next year's savings require that the project go ahead. That's looking less and less likely, since all of the arguments in favour of damming Muskrat Falls are looking equally threadbare. In fact, the proponents even seem to be having trouble convincing themselves that the Muskrat Falls development's eight-to-ten-billion dollar pricetag is not too much to pay, even though they still don't have any outside markets willin to buy the overly expensive power - Newfoundlanders certainly don't want to be gouged for it either, but unlike foreign customers they won't have a choice.

   The recent discovery that electricity consumers in the New England states do have a choice and that they've chosen never again to buy from destructive megaprojects like the proposed Lower Churchill Hydroelectric Development obviously came as very bad news to Nalcor, to the Progressive-Conservative government and to everybody else who wants more dams built in Labrador, no matter how hard they try to hide it. Without the United States Nalcor loses at least a third of its predicted markets for the Muskrat Falls power and now that Premier Kathy Dunderdale has declared the Province of Quebec to be the anti-Christ, Nalcor probably has to give up hope of selling electricity to Ontario and other points west using the Hydro-Quebec TransEnergie system. That leaves the Maritimes, but since Nova Scotia will get all of its electricity free, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island remain the only possible non-Newfoundland buyers of Labrador power. Neither seems to need it or want it.

   That's why Dunderdale suddenly started talking about how new mines in western Labrador could use the power. Until now, none of the electricity from Muskrat Falls was supposed to stay in Labrador. All of it was supposed to go to the island first. The outgoing Premier Danny Williams said so. He said that Labrador would have to wait until the next dam was built at Gull Island before it got any power. That, in fact, was the plan Nalcor submitted to the Joint Environmental Assessment Review Panel.

   So, what did Premier Kathy Dunderdale mean with her comment about the new market? Was she just saying that, sure, the new mines will get Lower Churchill power, but as planned - only after another 10- or 20-billion dollars is spent on the second project?

   Or has she unilaterally changed the Muskrat plans? Will the 339.6 megawatts (40 per cent of the projected output) that was previously reserved for the U.S.A. now go to western Labrador instead? The companies trying to open new mines on both sides of the border would certainly welcome the attention. They expect the new Parti Quebecois government to cut their Plan Nord subsidies and impose taxes, so they'll be happy to latch onto Nalcor, Newfoundland's most generous corporate welfare program.

   If this goes ahead the plans for the transmission lines will have to be changed, too. Nalcor will need an extra one from from Churchill Falls to Lab West, for sure, and maybe it won't need one to Nova Scotia, after all. When Williams proclaimed Lower Churchill success with great fanfare the day before he quit his job, all his triumphalism was based on the sketchy Emera deal. Now his successor must choose between leaving that lynchpin in place just to send free electricity out of the province, or pull it out and watch Nalcor's rickety plans crash to the ground.

   It's time to bring this latest version of the Lower Churchill boondoggle to an end, before any more damage is caused and any more money is wasted. That would be the prudent thing to do.