Last Thursday, I stopped to take the above photo of the now-forsaken thermal plant in Roddickton. This plant apparently ran on wood chips made from whole trees; residents of Roddickton told me that it was controversial, either because it would’ve used up all the trees in the area (perspective 1) or because it didn’t make economic sense (perspective 2). Whichever is true, this Dr. Seuss-inspired tree-eater is being gutted and carted off to Quebec in pieces, where it will be reassembled.
Power in Newfoundland is, and has always been, about modernization.
Cheap power is largely to thank for the survival of the paper mill in Corner Brook. The Deer Lake Power Plant once produced enough electricity for the pulp and paper mill as well as the towns of Corner Brook and Deer Lake. Today, along with the smaller Watson’s Brook Power Plant, it provides just 75% of the energy needs of Corner Brook Pulp and Paper.
Power was central to the modernizing vision of Premier Joseph Smallwood (premier from 1949-1972). Resettlement, which began in 1954, was partly intended to cluster people together so that the various electricity projects of the Island could reach all citizens. Smallwood struggled mightily to get electricity to the most isolated parts of Newfoundland through subsidized diesel generators, foreign-owned thermal plants, and hydro power facilities. His legacy, though eventually successful, was not without grievous consequences. People left the tiny skeletons of abandoned fishing villages across the Newfoundland coast, and resettled in larger towns for the often-unfulfilled promise of labour in nearby industrial plants.
Part of Smallwood’s legacy involves a power grid based largely on a public-private partnership. Today, most power plants in Newfoundland and Labrador are operated by Nalcor, a crown corporation which includes Newfoundland Hydro and the massive oil-fired Holyrood thermal plant. Most of Nalcor’s power is sold to Newfoundland Power, owned by St. John’s-based multinational corporation Fortis Incorporated, which sells the power to 243,000 customers in Newfoundland.
Another aspect of Smallwood’s legacy was the creation of the Upper Churchill dam, which created lasting enmity between Newfoundland and Quebec. Newfoundland essentially gave away most of the economic benefits of the project in exchange for a power corridor through Quebec. It was also a raw deal for the people of the Innu Nation, who were not even consulted about the damming, though they live next to it and have seen their hunting, fishing, and ancestral burial grounds decimated.
The promises of modernization continue to be linked to power generation, in the proposed Lower Churchill Falls project. Once again, the Innu are largely being excluded from negotiations, and a swirling din of criticism has materialized around the project, as it will destroy caribou and fish habitat, bury more Innu land claims, and have unclear economic effects for Newfoundlanders (not to mention Labradoreans). The project was recently exempted from Public Utility Board oversight, meaning it will not have a comprehensive, public cost-benefit analysis.
I grew up in a town that has a huge dam; that dam provided a lot of jobs over the years, jobs that have mostly disappeared; it provided a lot of money for a select group of people who sold the power to other states; and it buried one of the greatest salmon fishing sites in North America, Celilo Falls. It transformed a river into a series of reservoirs, and turned fish into money. It also ended years of periodic flooding and enabled the town to (at times) prosper. To modernize. I probably wouldn’t take that dam back if I could. But the unintended consequences of economic modernization too often include bereavement and regret.
I just think that when diving headlong into the future, it is good to check the water first.
