U.S. Company Told Manitoba Hydro Bad for Business

Winnipeg, MB -- -

Winnipeg, MB -- A battle between a Manitoba First Nation and a utility company has reached the boardroom of an American energy firm that does business with the Canadian agency. In a full-page advertisement Monday that ran in the New York Times, the group As You Sow tells shareholders of Xcel Energy that "investing in Manitoba Hydro's environmental destruction and human rights abuses is just bad business." It also says: "Vast flooding, mass poverty and high suicide rates are a horrible return on your investment. Yet that's what Xcel Energy supports when it purchases electricity from Manitoba Hydro." Xcel Energy, however, says it is advising its shareholders to vote against a resolution at its annual meeting on Wednesday in Minneapolis that would ban future purchases of energy from the Manitoba Crown corporation. "Our response to it is that it doesn't tell the whole story," Ed Legge, spokesman for Xcel Energy, said Monday from Minneapolis. "We've looked at that story and we feel a lot has been done and what is being disputed can be settled by the parties involved." Manitoba Hydro and the Pimicikamak Cree Nation in northern Manitoba have been battling for 25 years over a hydroelectric development the band says flooded traditional land. The Pimicikamak, who live 350 kilometres north of Winnipeg at Cross Lake, have resisted signing an agreement to replace the Northern Flood Agreement. The deal was struck in 1977 to compensate aboriginal communities in Manitoba for the impact of hydro development on hunting and fishing grounds. The Pimicikamak blame Manitoba Hydro's Churchill-Nelson Rivers mega-project for their unfit water and the destruction of their hunting and fishing grounds. Michael Passoff, spokesman for As You Sow, a non-profit foundation in San Francisco, said Xcel can get its power elsewhere and avoid the bad publicity Manitoba Hydro's actions at Cross Lake have generated in the media. "This is a headache for Xcel, they don't need it," Passoff said. "By taking the alternatives we can do things that make the situation for shareholders much better and that's also going to make things better hopefully for people in Cross Lake." The resolution asks the company to increase its power supply from renewable resources such as wind power and small hydro plants that do not have an adverse impact on human rights and the environment. "It's basically telling Manitoba Hydro it has to clean up its act or it's risking future contracts with Xcel," Passoff said. But without Manitoba Hydro, Xcel customers in the 12 western and midwestern states could find their electricity bills going up, Legge said. "If we did stop buying this electricity it would immediately go somewhere else on a grid that is becoming increasingly strained and it might end up being sold back to us by a third party. It's not going to solve anything and it's not going bring us to stop buying this electricity." Legge acknowledged hydroelectric developments have hurt native people and said there are mechanisms in place to address those impacts, in particular Manitoba's Northern Flood Agreement. No one from Pimicikamak First Nation could be reached for comment. Glenn Schneider, head of public affairs for Manitoba Hydro, said the ad is part of the Cross Lake campaign to embarrass the company and to try to get more compensation. He also said the band was not affected as badly as others. "While there were impacts to the Cross Lake area, there was no flooding. None of their reserve lands were flooded," Schneider said. They were still able to trap and when they weren't they were compensated, he said. Fishing was disrupted for 10 years but it recovered in the 1990s, Schneider said. The community has received more than $50 million from Manitoba Hydro in projects and money to make up for the effects of the development, he added. The band also walked away from a $100-million settlement for their claims, he said. "They're continuing to want money from us but they don't want to sign off on anything . . . They've told us that so they will continue to make this as painful as they can." Four other bands have settled under the flood agreement and Manitoba Hydro is looking at partnerships with two of the bands, he said. The Cross Lake band's continued efforts to discredit Manitoba Hydro could hurt the other bands and customers in the province, he said. "It does have the impact, or the potential impact of affecting sales. Not because Xcel Energy or our other customers believe we area a bad company to deal with. But simply because it becomes too much of a bother to put up with this campaign every time they want to conclude a sale with us."