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This article was published 8/5/2017 (1228 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Manitoba Hydro is facing concerns from indigenous people and potential legal challenges from southeastern Manitoba landowners as it gears up for construction of a power transmission line to Minnesota.

In opening statements Monday at a Clean Environment Commission hearing into the proposed Manitoba-Minnesota Transmission Project (MMTP), a lawyer representing landowners accused Hydro of employing biased and flawed methods in selecting the line's route.

Kevin Toyne said his client, the Southeast Stakeholders' Coalition, is particularly concerned with the middle section of the proposed route that passes through the municipalities of Tache and La Broquerie.

He suggested that Manitoba Hydro could get the proposed project built faster if it addressed the group's concerns, but didn't offer any details.

He told the commission that the Crown corporation is already making financial offers to affected landowners along the route, as though it expects the hearings to be a simple rubber-stamp process.

"Giving your blessing… to this flawed routing methodology that is going to be put before you — you would be doing a tremendous disservice to Manitobans," Toyne told the CEC panel.

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Manitoba Hydro is planning to construct a 213-kilometre, 500-kilovolt transmission line from the Dorsey converter station northwest of Winnipeg to the village of Piney at the American border, where it will link up with a U.S. line.

The MMTP, with a current budget of $453 million, has been approved by Manitoba Hydro's board. It is designed primarily to transmit export power from Manitoba generating stations to the U.S.

Manitoba–Minnesota Transmission Project route map

Hydro has contracts in place with U.S. buyers extending to 2040.

The proposed line will also allow for imports into Manitoba when there is a system failure here or droughts reduce hydro-generating capacity.

Doug Bedford, a Manitoba Hydro lawyer, said 92 km of the planned line will be located on existing Hydro rights of way. Of the 121 km of new route, 36 km are on provincial Crown land and 85 km are on privately owned land.

Bedford said the corporation has attempted to be more open and transparent in its route-selection process, in keeping with past CEC recommendations.

"At Manitoba Hydro, we have tried to improve our recognition and integration of indigenous knowledge in our work," he said. "We have — arguably more than with previous projects — tried to listen and to avoid impacting lands that indigenous people told us were of especial value to them."

The Clean Environment Commission has scheduled hearings on the transmission line project until June 8. It will then make recommendations for licensing to the provincial minister of sustainable development.

On Monday, the CEC heard opening statements from Manitoba Hydro and several intervening groups, including the Consumers' Association of Canada (Manitoba), Southern Chiefs' Organization, Peguis First Nation, Manitoba Metis Federation, Manitoba Wildlands, Dakota Plains Wahpeton Oyate and the Southeast Stakeholders' Coalition.

James Beddome, lawyer for the Southern Chiefs' Organization, said his client will bring in an expert who will demonstrate that there has been a significant decline in forested area along the proposed route — and a corresponding large increase in industrialization — since 1930.

He said SCO will make the point that indigenous people's traditional territories occupy vast areas, and they may travel hundreds of kilometres in exercising their traditional rights.

"They will demonstrate that indigenous rights are not confined to a single treaty area. But, in fact, that indigenous people can hunt on any unoccupied lands anywhere in Canada," Beddome said.

larry.kusch@freepress.mb.ca