Hydro project devastating region

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He's gone - or going - but he won't be forgotten. Brian Mulroney will be remembered in northern British Columbia, long after he's kicking up daisies, as the man who pulled the plug on the Nechako River.

Decades from now, people will talk abut the old Nechako River - and how it used to be. They'll talk about the prime minister - "What was his name? - who teamed up with B.C.. government in 1987 to kill one of the province's finest rivers. They will remember a B.C. government that forgot, and continues to forget, the provincial motto Splendor Since Occaasu (Splendor Without Diminishment).

The Nechako has been fighting for its life since the early 1950s when Alcan started sucking up to one third of its water to produce electricity as part of (hydroelectric plant) Kemano 1. Now it looks as if the river will die an unnatural death, finished off by Kemano 2. And this ain't no mercy killing. There's still a lot of life left in the Nechako. The question is for how long?

Not much longer unless British Columbians kick up a bigger fuss. The liar court government announced on Jan. 19 that Kemano 2 can go ahead. And the Supreme Court of Canada decided on Feb. 4 not to get involved in the legal debate.

The Nechako has its headwaters in the traditional territory of the Cheslatta Indian Band, which was devastated by Kemano 1. That project forced many non-Native people in the Ootsa Lake area to move as Alcan said it needed their land to create the Nechanko reservoir. Although Ootsa settlers were given up to two years notice, some of their anger at having to relocate still lingers after more than 40 years.

Unlike Ootsa settlers, Cheslatta people were given little notice their land was needed for the massive Alcan project. They were approached in early April 1952 and

told they'd have to get off the land on which they had lived, hunted and trapped for generations.

A few weeks later a coffer dam on Murray Lake started to back up water, flooding the Cheslatta homeland on Cheslatta Lake. With their backs to the wall and a gun to their heads, the Cheslatta people decided to leave.

They planned to return for the rest of their possessions. But before they could get back, Alcan sub-contractors torched their villages. And someone looted their belongings.

The Cheslatta's nightmares were far from over. In 1957 when the gates of the Skins Lake Spillway were first opened a massive surge of water washed away a Cheslatta graveyard at the west end of the lake. The Cheslatta were horrified. The graveyard contained dozens of their beloved ancestors who disappeared into the muddy torrent of the once placid Cheslatta Lake.

Coffins and grave houses were found floating on the surface of the lake. For years, bones, crosses, debris and even a skull were found washed up on the shores of Cheslatta Lake.

To compound the problem, Kemano 2 could very easily wipe out 20 per cent of the Fraser River's salmon stock.

The provincial government has decided even though the fish could be gone forever, it's better for that to happen than to shut down Kemano 2. Many Natives and non-Natives don't feel that way. For them, survival is the issue: the survival of the Nechako River, B.C. commercial fisheries and the food fishery of more than 100 Fraser Indian nations.