{"id":1194,"date":"2008-08-02T16:57:50","date_gmt":"2008-08-02T21:57:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spacingmontreal.ca\/2008\/08\/02\/hydroelectricitys-landscape\/"},"modified":"2013-01-21T11:42:20","modified_gmt":"2013-01-21T16:42:20","slug":"hydroelectricitys-landscape","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/montreal\/2008\/08\/02\/hydroelectricitys-landscape\/","title":{"rendered":"Hydroelectricity&#8217;s Landscape"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/24923563@N02\/2726480512\/\" title=\"Les escaliers des g\u00e9ants by alanah.montreal, on Flickr\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm4.static.flickr.com\/3040\/2726480512_0a51fc43b1.jpg\" alt=\"Les escaliers des g\u00e9ants\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" \/><\/a><br \/>\n<em>Les Escaliers des G\u00e9ants: Spillway of the Robert Bourassa Hydroelectric Dam.\u00a0 Photo by Lily Pan, June 24th 2008. Used with permission. <\/em><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN-US\">1300 kilometers north of Montreal, I have reached the end of the road. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN-US\">To the west, the town of Radisson perches below the Robert Bourassa (LG-2) hydroelectric complex, buzzing under a thick forest of electrical towers. To the east, towards James Bay, lies the infamously displaced Cree community of Chisasibi.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN-US\">Montrealers have all, indreictly, had a hand shaping the landscape of this remote hinterland. Our city is connected to this place by a direct lifeline or, more precisely, by over 60,000 kms of aluminum powerlines.<\/span><!--more--><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN-US\">The Robert Bourassa complex hosts 16 underground turbines that work day and night to produce the clean, relatively cheap electricity we consume in our city and beyond. Our reliance on hydroelectricity allows Quebec to stand so effortlessly in favor of the Kyoto Agreement and other climate change policies.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN-US\">The darker side to Hydro development &#8211; displaced Cree commnities, major changes to the region&#8217;s hydrology and decades of mercury contamination in the fish &#8211; is, for most of us, a long-forgotten controversy. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN-US\">But on-site, the extent to which we have altered the landscape to create hydropower in Quebec is astonishing, and undeniably impressive. Hydro Quebec\u2019s tourist panels proudly describe the project, which began in the 1970s, as \u201caudacious.\u201d The magnitude of the project is hard to grasp even on-site as the entire La Grande complex covers over 100,000 square kilometers.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><a href=\"http:\/\/spacing.ca\/network\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2008\/12\/i_zoom_lagrande.gif\" title=\"i_zoom_lagrande.gif\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/spacing.ca\/network\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2008\/12\/i_zoom_lagrande.gif\" alt=\"i_zoom_lagrande.gif\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><em>La Grande Complex map from <a href=\"http:\/\/www.hydroquebec.com\/generation\/hydroelectric\/la_grande\/index.html\">Hydro Quebec<\/a> <\/em><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span>The Robert Bourassa dam is over 500 meters wide at its base and about as high as the Olympic Stadium. This structure can hold back the entire flow of La Grande Rivi\u00e8re, the second-largest river in Quebec (after the Saint-Lawrence). The Robert Bourassa reservoir stretches to the horizon, a flooded an area more than five times the island of Montreal.<o:p><\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN-US\">The \u201cgiant stairs\u201d of the reservoir\u2019s spillway (a kind of emergency exit in case the reservoir were to overflow), are 1.5 km long and each step 10m high and wide as a city block.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN-US\">Four other rivers (Caniapiscau, Eastmain, Opinaca and Petite Opinaca) have also been diverted to feed into the generators. The Rupert river will be the next to be dammed, with construction <a href=\"http:\/\/www.hydroquebec.com\/rupert\/en\/index.html\">already underway<\/a>. A large proportion of its water will be diverted 360 kms off its natural course into the Robert Bourassa reservoir. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN-US\">Downstream, the Cree Nation of Waskagnish still has plenty of unanswered questions about how this will impact the local environment, their traditional hunting and fishing grounds, and their health.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><em><span lang=\"EN-US\">More information about the La Grande hydroelectricity complex is available from <a href=\"http:\/\/www.hydroquebec.com\/visit\/virtual_visit\" target=\"_blank\">Hydro Quebec<\/a>:<a href=\"http:\/\/www.hydroquebec.com\/visit\/virtual_visit\"><br \/>\n<\/a><\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><em><span lang=\"EN-US\">More about the Cree community of Chisasibi on the Spacing Montreal tomorrow!<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><em><span lang=\"EN-US\"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p><\/o:p><\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN-US\"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--><em> <\/em><!--[endif]--><o:p><\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Les Escaliers des G\u00e9ants: Spillway of the Robert Bourassa Hydroelectric Dam.\u00a0 Photo by Lily Pan, June 24th 2008. Used with permission. 1300 kilometers north of Montreal, I have reached the end of the road. To the west, the town of Radisson perches below the Robert Bourassa (LG-2) hydroelectric complex, buzzing under a thick forest of<a href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/montreal\/2008\/08\/02\/hydroelectricitys-landscape\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"sr-only\">&#8220;Hydroelectricity&#8217;s Landscape&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5022,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7835,7841],"tags":[918,10,2806,2805,2812,125,861,18,68,292,2811,27,2808,2810,2809,2807],"class_list":["post-1194","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-green-space","category-services","tag-electricity","tag-environment","tag-james-bay","tag-la-grande","tag-lg","tag-montreal","tag-olympic-stadium","tag-other-cities","tag-public-services","tag-quebec","tag-radisson","tag-resources","tag-robert-bourassa-complex","tag-robert-bourassa-dam","tag-robert-bourassa-hydroelectric-dam","tag-rupert-river"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Hydroelectricity&#039;s Landscape - Spacing Montreal<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/montreal\/2008\/08\/02\/hydroelectricitys-landscape\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Hydroelectricity&#039;s Landscape - Spacing Montreal\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Les Escaliers des G\u00e9ants: Spillway of the Robert Bourassa Hydroelectric Dam.\u00a0 Photo by Lily Pan, June 24th 2008. Used with permission. 1300 kilometers north of Montreal, I have reached the end of the road. 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