Like with the pow-wow with the electoral dam, can a council be considered (NBY:CA) the CEO to mine NIOBIUM, the dam ended up a great asset:
“We recognized in order to capture some of these hydro-electric opportunities such as this, we need a new model in interfacing with first nations,” he said.
“It shifts us away from looking to those not-so-pleasant times of the past in terms of how first nations were treated with hydro-electric development.”
Some of the capital that the Moose Cree are putting into the project comes from settlements of claims dating back to when the first dams were constructed.
They flooded trap lines and displaced residents, Hunter said, and the claims for compensation had lingered until now. Other unsettled claims dated back to the terms of the original treaties signed with the Cree.
Money from the settlement of the claims will be rolled into the new partnership. The Cree will also be able to use income from the project to increase their equity stake to a maximum of 25 per cent.
Qualified local residents will also get preference for construction jobs, which will peak at 800.
The current project will not flood any new territory. One of the four generating stations, at Smoky Falls, will have to be rebuilt, but on the same footprint as the existing dam and station.
New units will be added to the existing Harmon, Kipling and Little Long stations, built in the 1960s and opened by former Ontario premier John Robarts.
Murphy said the project will boost the amount of clean power available during peak demand periods. It will also be available to complement the variable output of wind and solar generation.
The chief contractor for the project is a partnership between Peter Kiewit & Sons Co., and Leo Alarie and Sons, a unit of Aecon Infrastructure Group.
Murphy said OPG has signed an agreement with the Ontario Power Authority to buy the power from the project, but didn’t disclose the terms.
The Lower Mattagami power is not covered by the batch of renewable power contracts that were recently awarded by the power authority at prices significantly higher than current market leve
