Staff
Members of the public who have questions regarding the proposed hydroelectric development along the Namakan River are invited to the upcoming open houses being held across the district.
Here in Fort Frances, the open house is slated for Thursday, Feb. 18 from 2-8 p.m. at the Adventure Inn.
These open houses (the other two are scheduled for Feb. 15 at Lac La Croix and Feb. 16 in Atikokan) follow the release of the draft environmental report for the hydroelectric development project proposed by the Ojibway Power and Energy Group Ltd.—a partnership between Lac La Croix First Nation and Chant Construction Ltd.
“The open house is really going to be sort of a walk-through, with booths that highlight the different avenues or different areas of concern that people may have,” explained Dale Gilbert, environmental project co-ordinator with Chant Construction Ltd.
“It won’t be like a town hall meeting,” he noted. “It will sort of be an informal booth were people can pick and choose what they want to look at.
“And we’ll have people manning the booth so they can talk and ask questions and leave comments, and that sort of thing.”
OPEG’s proposal is to construct a 6.4 megawatt “run-of-river” hydroelectric generating station at High Falls on the Namakan River, which is located about 90 km southwest of Atikokan and 100 km southeast of Fort Frances.
Eventually, development of a “run-of-river” station at Hay Rapids is planned, as well.
“Essentially, we have done a number of years’—like four or five years—worth of studies of in the field,” said Gilbert, referring to the recently-released draft environmental report for the proposed project.
“So we’ve identified where our potential issues and concerns would be and developed mitigation plans to protect all the values that are there,” he remarked.
“And so we’ve tried to incorporate everything into the report to give people an idea of what we’ve found and what we would anticipate having to do to move forward.”
The complete environmental report is available online at www.opeg.ca
It also can be found in hard copy format during the review period at the Atikokan Public Library, the Fort Frances Public Library, and Lac La Croix band office.
Since the project requires various environmental permits and approvals from both federal and provincial agencies, the draft environmental report combines and consolidates the requirements for these.
It also outlines the consultations that were undertaken with aboriginal peoples, agencies, and the public concerning the development back in the winter of 2007/08.
“There’s definitely a lot of information there, and it would be difficult to try to even summarize it,” Gilbert said about the report.
“So we’re going to try and come prepared for everything, and just kind of let people ask the questions that they want,” he noted.
“[We’ll] try to either answer them on the spot or take the comments and questions away with us and then get back to them later with the appropriate response.”
Gilbert stressed the development is a community project with Lac La Croix Fist Nation, which will also be represented at the open houses.
“If you look at the Ontario definition of environment, it includes the social and economic conditions of the study area also, so it’s not just the natural environment,” he explained.
“You’re concerned about, say, how much traffic is going down the road and what the employment conditions are, and what the cultural conditions are.
“So when you look at an environmental report, it really encompasses every aspect from weather to water quality to employment, education, all the conditions that could be affected by it,” Gilbert added.
Gilbert reiterated that Lac La Croix First Nation definitely is part of the process and the study, so they are going to be there.
“The report really is their view of what they anticipate,” he remarked. “So they’ll be on hand, and they’ll be manning some of the booths.
“They’ll certainly be involved.”
The open house at Lac La Croix is slated for next Monday (Feb. 15) from 5-8 p.m. in the Zhingwaako Zaaga’iganing School gymnasium, with the one in Atikokan taking place on Tuesday, Feb. 16 from 2-8 p.m. at the Royal Canadian Legion.
Comments concerning the draft environmental report must be received in writing no later than Feb. 26.
These should be directed to either OPEG president Tim Saville at P.O. Box 248, Aurora, Ont., L4G 3H4 or to Gilbert at 226 Edward St., Aurora, Ont., L4G 3S8.
There also are plans to eventually develop a hydroelectric dam at Myrtle Falls, although the environmental studies and report have yet to be done for this site.
