From: Dale McMillen <dmcmillen@igc.apc.org>
Newsgroups: alt.politics.greens
Date: 10 Jan 93 14:50 PST
Subject: Re: INDIGENOUS ENVIRO PERSPECTIVES
Nf-ID: #R:cdp:1678600078:cdp:1678600085:000:3548
Nf-From: cdp.UUCP!dmcmillen    Jan 10 14:50:00 1993


Message 68 (66 lines)
From Justin.A.Ruben@Dartmouth.EDU Sun Jan 10 11:00:06 1993
Date: 10 Jan 93 13:57:40 EST
From: Justin.A.Ruben@Dartmouth.EDU
Subject: Re: INDIGENOUS ENVIRO PERSPECTIVES
To: dmcmillen@igc.apc.org (Dale McMillen)
 
--- You wrote:
The report provides the details of the James Bay Hydro-Electric project which
is in the process of detroying the Cree and Inuit peoples through mercury
poisoning, displacing the peoples, and the flooding of an area the size of
France!
 
--- end of quoted material ---
 
I don't know if this is a typo or actually in the report, nor do I know
whether or not you had anything to do with its preparation or are in contact
with the people who did.  But as (I believe) I am largely responsible for the
erroneous propagation of the "size of France" statistic, I should probably
clarify it.
 
the following analysis might seem like overkill.  However it comes from my
strong conviction that our greatest asset in the fight against Hydro-Quebec,
and in the greater struggle in general, is that we speak the truth (and
frequently HQ doesn't).  As soon as they can destroy our credibility, as they
continue to try to do, we've lost.
 
Perhaps you can communicate the following to those responsible for the
report, and future editions can be corrected, or at keast a correction
statement included with disseminated copies.
 
I believe the "size of france" simile came originally a representative of the
Grand Council of the Crees.  Maybe they have some basis for it that I am not
familiar with.  But almost everyone (including activists) uses Hydro-Quebec's
figures for watershed and reservoir area.  Taking those to be true,the amount
of land to be flooded by James Bay will be 17,191 sq. km., approximately
halfway between the size of Connecticut and Massachusetts.  The total
reservoir area of the project will be 25,949 sq. km., similar in size to
Vermont, which is 24,900 sq. km.  This includes areas already covered by
lakes and rivers, but one can legitimately say that this entire area will be
"flooded," because the character of rivers and lakes will be altered almost
as severely as that of the land to be inundated.
 
The total watershed area of all affected rivers (which some people call the
total affected area, although some parts of the watershed might not be
affected and some areas outside might be) is 365,530 sq. km.  It is this that
people have compared to France, NOT the actual land flooded, which is
obviously much smaller.  However, even this comparison  is bogus.  France has
an area of 543,965 sq. km.  So they are not really the same size, or even
close.  The watershed is closer in size to California (411,047).
 
In summary France is about 14 times larger than the area to be flooded, so to
say they are the same is a rather significant exaggeration.
 
Thanks for the summary though.
 
       Justin Ruben
      justin.ruben@dartmouth.edu
 
--------------------------------------------
 
Note from Dale:
 
Actually, I must confess, the report did not mention "size of France",
I added it myself because the phrase was regularly being used when I
was personally involved in the issue about 18 months ago.  We were
lobbying Mario Cuomo not to buy Hydro Quebec at the time.  We won!
(At least for now, I think).  I have not since been personally active
in the issue, having moved on to other stuff, so I am not sure the
current status.
 
As it turned out, I shouldn't have embellished the original article.
The one place I chose to embellish turned out to be a mistake!
Oh well......