Churchill River Diversion

Afer enduring nearly 50 years of harm arising from a massive hydropower project constructed against their wishes, O-Pipon-Na-Piwin Cree Naton (OPCN), along with two related community associatons, filed a statement of claim in Manitoba Court of King’s Bench on May 19, 2023.
The statement of claim seeks:
1) compensation for damages from impacts of the Churchill River Diversion project that foods 837 square kilometres and raises the level of Southern Indian Lake, the fourth largest lake in the province and the heart of OPCN, by about 3 metres… Read more

Manitoba Conservation and Climate issued final licences for Manitoba Hydro’s Churchill River diversion and Lake Winnipeg regulation and the Jenpeg generating station May 13, more than four decades after the projects were completed and put into service. Until today, Hydro was operating them with interim licence that had to be renewed annually. Additional conditions have been added to the licences in an effort to address concerns raised by affected Indigenous…
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Two Manitoba First Nations are asking the provincial government to hold off on granting a final licence to Manitoba Hydro’s Churchill River Diversion until their concerns are addressed. The Churchill River Diversion, which has been functional since 1976, brings more water to Hydro’s generating station on the lower Nelson River, which is helpful for power generation. It has been operating on an interim licence, but the province is considering granting…
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O-Pipon-Na-Piwin and Tataskweyak Cree Nations are calling for improved consultations on the potential for a Final Licence on the Churchill River Diversion and the end of the Augmented Flow Program, which they say has devastated their fisheries. Manitoba Hydro has been operating on annual interim licences since the project was completed in 1977 and the province has said a final licence will be granted to take Hydro through to 2026….
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A billboard in Winnipeg’s Fort Richmond area calls on Manitoba’s environment minister to take action on what advocates say is a decades-long problem with environmental degradation caused by a Manitoba Hydro diversion program. The billboard points to an online petition asking the Conservation Minister Sarah Guillemard — the MLA for Fort Richmond — to decline a permanent licence request for Manitoba Hydro’s Churchill River Diversion, which was created to increase water flow to generating stations. That request asks…
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The provincial government will soon decide whether to disregard our wishes and grant Manitoba Hydro a final licence for the Churchill River Diversion, a project that diverts up to 95 per cent of the flow of the second largest river in the province — at great cost to us. The final licensing decision should have been made 44 years ago when the water first went up, but that didn’t happen….
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After what those who live in the region say has been more than four decades of struggle, people in northern Manitoba impacted by the Churchill River Diversion (CRD) are looking at the end of the line. After decades of seeing one-year licenses renewed by the province as they try to negotiate a way to save or at least partially restore a way of life interrupted by the diversion, people in…
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