At the end of a winding, gravel road half-way between Val d’Or and Temiscaming is a little Algonquin community, Winneway. It sits right on the Winneway River, and 100 yards upstream you can see the Winneway hydro-electric dam.
The Long Point First Nation has had its share of run-ins with hydro-projects over the years. The band gets its name from the original site where the band had its home, Long Point, 30 miles west of the present location of Winneway. In 1912, a hydroelectric project flooded the site.
The people had to move. But the move was not without glitches. The old graveyard at Long Point had to be moved too because of the flooding. “I don’t think they did a very good job,” says Elder Walter Poison. “Sometimes you see coffins there sticking out of the ground.”
Again in 1936, some trappers from the band were forced off their lands near Rapid-7 by another hydro-development Winneway now wants to take back control over its future by buying another hydro-dam 100 yards up-river. Its five-year campaign to buy this dam is an incredible tale of struggle against indifferent and sometimes devious Quebec politicians, British bankers and a Montreal developer suspected of money laundering in the U.S.
Winneway wants to buy a small, 2.4-megawatt dam built in 1938 so it can sell the power to Hydro-Quebec.
The community of 500 believes the dam, if managed properly, could bring in $415,000 in annual profit by the year 2000.
Band officials say the cash could go a long way to easing the serious housing crisis plaguing this community where nearly half the band members live off-reserve due to lack of housing. The extra income could also help out Winneway’s 62-per-cent unemployment rate, a problem that’s getting worse since half the band’s members are aged under 20.
For Chief Jimmy Hunter, the battle to get the dam has a certain irony. “Both my grandparents on both sides were flooded out, and here I am trying to get into the power business,” he muses. Chief Hunter’s grandparents on one side used to live at Long Point The other side of his family used to live at Rapid-7.
The floodings caused many band members to abandon their hunting and trapping way of life. Now, the community wants to turn things around, said Chief Hunter. “In the last 10 years, people were getting fed up with being on welfare. They want jobs.”
But so far, no luck with the government The community has yet to be recognized as a reserve and therefore doesn’t qualify for much federal support. And Winneway’s attempt to buy the dam is getting little support in Quebec, despite assurances from the PQ government that Natives would have a share in resource development. In fact, officials in Quebec seem ready to hand the hydro-dam over to just about anyone except Winneway.
The dam has flipped hands three times in under 20 years. The situation got really strange when the dam was sold to Peter Kuczer, a Montreal developer arrested in May 1994 for alleged money-laundering in the U.S.
U.S. Customs alleged that Kuczer wanted to launder drug money through his company Hydro P-1, the same company that owns the Winneway dam. Kuczer was cleared of the U.S. criminal charge in Sept 1994. He agreed to plead guilty to a misdemeanor charge and pay a $1,000 fine for failing to sign a quarterly Internal Revenue Service declaration.
Injune 1994, the newspaper Les Affaires reported that Kuczer was also being pursued for unpaid GST and provincial sales tax. His firm finally went bankrupt in April and is being pursued by creditors for $17 million.
“Everyone knows electricity and water don’t mix” When Kuczer took over the Winneway dam, band members employed at the dam were let go and replaced by out-of-towners. Now they have to put up with the indignity of dam workers coming through their community every day on their way to jobs that used to be held by Winneway residents. The only route to the dam is through Winneway, which the band points to as yet another reason Quebec can’t ignore Winneway’s concerns.
Kuczer bought the dam from the town of Belleterre, 21 km away, in 1991. The sale took Winneway by surprise since at the time the band was in the middle of lobbying Quebec to take over the dam itself. Just months before the sale, the Quebec government transferred the real estate at the Winneway dam, which it still owned at thetime, to the town of Belleterre.
At the time of the sale, the Liberals were in power in Quebec City. Curiously, the Liberal Party received a $3,000 donation from Kuczer in 1993, the maximum allowed under the law. To this day, Belleterre still hasn’t been paid in full for the dam by Kuczer’s company. He got the dam for $515,000, a fraction of the current market value of just over $3 million.
After Kuczer’s legal problems, U.K.-based Barclays Bank took over the dam. But even though Winneway is more than ready to pay a fair price for the dam, the bank is now courting yet another outside interest, Cascade Energy Inc., to run it Winneway is being frozen out again.
“We feel they’re not taking us seriously,” said Chief Hunter. ‘They don’t want us to take care of our own economic development They want us to be on welfare. We don’t want that We don’t want government hand-outs.”
Not only that, the dam is poorly run and badly needs repairs, according to band officials and an engineering consultants’ study financed by the federal government The dam overflowed twice last year. Elders say they can’t remember the dam ever overflowing before in its 57-year life.
On a visit to the dam in early April, we witnessed water all over the floor in the generating station. The water was seeping into the generating station from cracks in penstock, a tube that carries water to the station from the dam’s reservoir. These cracks must be repaired, Chief Hunter said.
If water had gotten into the generator, the entire structure could have been severely damaged. “Everyone knows electricity and water don’t mix.”
Also inside the station was an out-of-order sign hung on a large hook used to lift the station’s two huge flywheels. Health and safety officials had declared the hoist unsafe.
Yvon Lemire, the only employee present at the dam, said the dam wall itself also has several cracks. “But they are only little ones,” he said. Lemire, who’s worked at the dam two years, never worked at a dam before. His only training was a two-day course on Hydro-Quebec norms and regulations.
Winneway residents say if they were in charge, they could run the dam more safely and efficiently, and save the government money in lower welfare payments.
“It would mean a beginning,” said Winneway’s economic development officer. “We’ve been pushed aside for so many years. We’re always at the bad end of the stick. We want to change that.”
