Northern Man. chiefs call for vote on hydro transmission line

Some native leaders in Manitoba are calling on the province to hold a referendum in First Nations communities on the location of a new hydro transmission line.

Provincial officials announced last month that Manitoba Hydro's third high-voltage, direct-current transmission line will run west of Lake Manitoba rather than cutting a shorter route through pristine boreal forest on the east side of Lake Winnipeg in part because First Nations communities on the east side didn't want the line.

But officials with Manitoba Keewatinook Ininew Okimowin, which represents 30 northern ManitobaFirst Nations, say that's not true.

"The government is saying there is no support from those communities, and we're saying there is support," MKIO head Sidney Garrioch said Wednesday.

"That's why we're saying, 'Government, go to the people.'"

Garrioch is asking Premier Gary Doer to finance a referendum of 11 MKIO member reserves that might be affected by the transmission line, as well as reserves on the east side of Lake Winnipeg that are not part of MKIO.

But Doer saidthe province has already consulted the community on the east side,and they do not support the line.

"We had our own meetings on the east side to determine the support of the people," he said."We had those going on for two years."

Garrioch said MKIO will go ahead with a referendum even if the province won't fund it.

The province may not get the cooperation it hopes for from First Nations on the west side of the lakes, he added.

Alternative east-side routes proposed

The route down the western side of the province is longer and will cost hundreds of millions more to build, and it's estimated Manitoba Hydro willforfeit an additional hundreds of millions of dollars in power lost as the electricity makes the longer journey south.

However,environmentalists have applauded the provincial government's decision to go west,arguing that maintaining the forest is worth the cost.

Critics of the west-side decision, including Opposition leader Hugh McFadyen, say the east-side First Nations need the economic boost that the hydro project could bring, such as construction jobs and benefit-sharing agreements on affected land.

But some bands on the east side have raisedconcerns about how a hydroelectric line could affecta proposal to have a large area of landdeclared a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

On Tuesday, MKIO presented "alternative routes" for the east-side line, which Garrioch said could "satisfy all people and governments concerned with the disruption" of the proposed UNESCO site.

MKIO's proposed routes would skirt much of the proposed site, crossing it between the Poplar River and Pauingassi traditional resource areas and hugging the east side of Lake Winnipeg south to Bloodvein.

It was not immediately clear how much longer MKIO's alternative routes would be, compared with Manitoba Hydro's abandoned east-side proposal.

The precise route for the $2-billion line will be determined after an environmental, design and public consultation process that is expected to take several years.

About three-quarters of Manitoba Hydro's electricity production is currently supplied through two transmission lines that run from Gillam to Winnipeg through the Interlake area, between the province's two large lakes.

Once the third line is complete in 2017, it will provide a backup to those lines and carry power from new planned generating stations to southern Manitoba.