While the "news" last week from Manitoba NDP Premier Greg Selinger that Manitoba Hydro has signed agreements for a 250-MW sale of electricity to Minnesota Power and a 100-MW sale to Wisconsin Public Service - combined with a previously completed 125-MW sale to Minneapolis' Northern States Power - for sales totalling 475-MW, with an estimated value of $4 billion, is welcome, as it will trigger construction of the 695-MW Keeyask Generating Station on the Nelson River, it is for the most part recycled and downgraded news.
Most of the information about the sale of power to Minnesota and Wisconsin had been announced previously - more than three years ago, actually, on April 17, 2008. How's that for recycling? And keeping with that theme, scaled down also. Back then it was $5.5 billion in projected hydro-electricity exports.
The 250-MW power sale to Minnesota Power is for a 15-year period from 2020 to 2035.
A "term sheet" signed with Wisconsin Public Service called for "up to 500-MW" over 15 years starting in 2018. Last week's "re-announcement" calls for selling only 100-MW starting in 2021 and running until 2027. That means about 400-MW and three years have vanished, although the premier said negotiations to again expand the Wisconsin sale to 500-MW are continuing. Meantime, c'est la vie one supposes. "For better is half a loaf than no bread," goes the old English proverb.
The Bipole III transmission line, being developed for a 2017 in-service date, will be used to transmit power south from Keeyask. "Every map you check shows that Minnesota and Wisconsin are aligned to the east side of Manitoba, so you have to wonder why the NDP won't build the new power line closer to these customers," said Manitoba Progressive Conservative Opposition leader Hugh McFayden. "These re-announced power deals today are more evidence that the east side is the right direction for the new power line. Why waste $11,748 per family of four in Manitoba just to build a major power line further away from your customers?"
While the 200-MW Wuskwatim Generating Station on the Burntwood River near Nelson House has an estimated construction cost of $1.3 billion - plus another $300 million to build the hydro lines and towers and other associated infrastructure to move the power south - for a total estimated cost of $1.6 billion, the planned 695-MW Keeyask (Cree for gull) Generating Station on the Nelson River, downstream from Split Lake and 175 kilometres northeast of Thompson in the Split Lake Resource Management Area, is a $5.6 billion project - about 4.3 times as expensive to build as Wuskwatim and generating almost 3.5 times as much power as the Nelson House area project.
Selinger said May 25 Keeyask will provide some 4,500 person-years of construction employment.
Manitoba Hydro and representatives from the Tataskweyak Cree Nation, War Lake First Nation, Fox Lake Cree Nation, and York Factory First Nation signed the Joint Keeyask Development Agreement at Split Lake for the Keeyask Generating Station in May 2009. Under the agreement Manitoba Hydro will provide administrative and management services for the project and will own at least 75 percent of the equity. The four First nations will collectively have the right to own up to 25 percent of the partnership.
The Manitoba Hydro-Electric Board has yet to approve the construction and both provincial and federal regulatory licences and approvals are still required.
While the details will necessarily differ in the planning and implementation processes for Keeyask from Wuskwatim, as there is no one-size-fits-all solution for hydro-electric development in Northern Manitoba on traditional Cree land, Wuskwatim is a good model for how things can work today and tomorrow as opposed to the adversarial relations in the 1960s and 1970s between Northern Manitoba's Cree First Nations and Manitoba Hydro, a provincial Crown corporation.
In the old days, Manitoba Hydro came in and flooded Cree land to take power in our name to ship south, not to put too fine a point on the historical truth.
In 1976, the Churchill River Diversion Project began. Flow was diverted by a series of channels and control structures into the Nelson River.
Three of Manitoba s largest dams and hydro-electric generating stations were built earlier in Fox Lake traditional Cree territory near Gillam between 1966 and 1992. Kettle, Long Spruce and Limestone flooded more than 300 square kilometres and displaced many Fox Lake residents. In the 1970s, hydro development also brought significant flooding to the Burntwood River, which had a significant impact on Nelson House.
The Northern Flood Agreement of 1977 addressed adverse effects experienced by First Nations signatories in connection with Manitoba Hydro's operation of the Lake Winnipeg Regulation and Nelson River Diversion Project and Churchill River Diversion (LWRCRD) project.
Wuskwatim marked the first time Manitoba Hydro partnered with a First Nation for hydro-electric development. The Wuskwatim Power Limited Partnership, a legal entity comprised of Manitoba Hydro and the Nisichawayasihk Cree Nation (NCN), is developing the now almost completed project.
Manitoba Hydro is providing construction and management services to the Wuskwatim Power Limited Partnership, in accordance with the project development agreement signed in June 2006.
