First the ice storm – then came the bear.
Hydro-Quebec has finally removed a deceased black bear from a hydro pole near Radisson, after leaving it to decay for a month in the hot summer weather.
A Hydro-Quebec worker was finally sent up the pole to remove the dead bear on July 22 or 23, according to a Sûreté du Québec officer in Radisson.
The bear, which got electrocuted, was first spotted on June 22. Hydro-Quebec was notified the next day, but didn’t act until people in Chisasibi complained.
Hydro-Quebec says its striking unions are to blame for the long delay, but the unions say that’s not true and the line-climbers aren’t even on strike.
Léon-Marie Hachez, a Hydro spokesman in Radisson, said he didn’t know what date the bear was finally taken down.
Hachez blamed the unions for the delay. “Hydro-Quebec has employees who are on strike,” he said when asked why it took a month to get the bear down.
He said it was the first time he’d seen an electrocuted bear stuck on a hydro pole in his 20 years living in Radisson.
“Personally, I was very surprised,” he said, chuckling. “It’s excessively rare that a phenomenon like this happens.”
Marc Dion, head of the provincial wildlife office in Radisson, also blamed the delay on Hydro-Quebec’s unions. “The union refused to send someone to climb up the line,” he said.
He said wildlife staff don’t have the authority to climb a hydro pole.
Once the carcass was finally
taken down, Dion said wildlife staff buried it in a nearby sand pit.
But union leader Pierre Hadd said Hydro-Quebec is to blame, not his members. “It was completely a decision of management. We sent people as soon as they were requested,” said Hadd, who heads the 400-member La Grande section of Hydro’s trades union.
Hadd said Hydro’s line-climbers aren’t even on strike because they are considered essential services.
Close to 15,000 Hydro workers have been on strike for several months and refuse to perform non-essential services.
In another H-Q development, Hadd said the strike has, however, affected the routine upkeep of Hydro’s James Bay dam complex.
Hadd confirmed that maintenance and inspections have been sacrificed at Hydro’s facilities during the strike – as reported in the last issue of The Nation.
He said LG-1, LG-2 and LG-2A are the facilities not being serviced.
Hydro’s unions are performing only essential services during the strike, so they don’t want to help the utility export power to the United States. But Hydro refuses to stop the power exports. The result is there isn’t enough capacity to take any turbines off-line for servicing.
Hadd said he has no idea if the lack of maintenance will mean blackouts next winter, as other union leaders have predicted.
“I can’t say how it would affect the facilities. I haven’t set a foot in there,” he said.
