More than 200 Canadian and international scholars are calling on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, the federal government, Newfoundland and Labrador government, and Nalcor to halt all work on the dam “until free, prior, and informed consent is received from the Indigenous peoples affected by the dam.”
The open letter was released Wednesday.
“We are scholars and researchers writing to express our deep concern over the Muskrat Falls Dam project on Labrador’s Churchill River,” the group wrote to Trudeau.
In June, a group of researchers travelled to Labrador and met with representatives from local Inuit and Innu communities, and from Nalcor – the crown corporation leading the project – to discuss the dam’s progress and the social and environmental risks posed by the dam, according to the news release.
Labrador Land Protectors urged the researchers to add their voices to growing concerns around the project, the group said. The letter suggests the Muskrat Dam is counter to the government’s reconciliation commitments, impinges on the future fiscal stability of Newfoundland and , and holds tremendous environmental risk.
“We need to respect and uphold Aboriginal rights and title, for the honor of the Crown,” said Annie Booth, professor at the University of Northern British Columbia.
“The methyl mercury risks described by Calder et al (2016) are a pending public health disaster that is clearly preventable. To not mitigate these known risks would be criminal,” said Prof. Tim K. Takaro from the faculty of health sciences, Simon Fraser University.
The group also wants a separate independent inquiry into the stability of the North Spur.
And it wants government to implement original recommendations of the 2016 Harvard University study seeking full clearance of brush, trees, and topsoil, along with the capping of the wetlands, at the Muskrat Falls reservoir to prevent the bioaccumulation of the neurotoxin methylmercury.
