Grand Rapids residents march to Manitoba Hydro generating station to protest automation
Sean Kavanagh | CBC News | Posted: June 10, 2019 6:39 PM | Last Updated: June 10, 2019
'If they go automated, it means our lives are going to placed in the hands of computers, and things screw up'
Hundreds of residents around Grand Rapids have marched to Manitoba Hydro's generating station over concerns they won't get a proper warning if the nearby dam breaches.
The provincial utility is automating some functions at the Grand Rapids Generating Station and Hydro staff will no longer be at the facility 24 hours a day.
About 1,500 people live in Misipawistik Cree First Nation and the town of Grand Rapids, both located just metres from the 479-megawatt generating station about 400 kilometres north of Winnipeg.
Some residents of the community on the Saskatchewan River west of Lake Winnipeg, about 150 km southeast of The Pas, fear a move from man to machine will leave them at risk.
"If they go automated, it means our lives are going to placed in the hands of computers, and things screw up. Computers do wrong things, as humans do, but we will feel safer if there is somebody there," Gerald McKay told CBC News as he marched with hundreds of protesters Monday morning.
Residents of Grand Rapids and Misipawistik Cree Nation plan to remain outside the generating station for the next three days, demanding meetings with management at Hydro.
Protest organizers said a test of warning sirens by Hydro last week wasn't heard by many members of the community.
"[The dam is] a wall of water backed up 1,600 miles and we live there, so if something were to go wrong, we'd be the only ones affected, in this community, and people are scared," McKay said.
CBC News has asked Manitoba Hydro for comment on the protest and the concerns raised by the community.
In a statement in May, a Manitoba Hydro spokesperson said many generating stations across North America are automated on a full-time or part-time basis, including several in Manitoba, and Hydro staff "live less than a kilometre away from the station itself."
Manitoba Hydro has been in "regular communications" about the changes with both the leadership of the town of Grand Rapids and the First Nation, and takes the community's concerns seriously, Manitoba Hydro director of communications Scott Powell said Monday.
Manitoba Hydro held a town hall in Grand Rapids to explain the changes and how the new system at the generating station works, he said.
"Automated fail-safe systems are designed to react just as quickly as a human," Powell said.
Political leaders from Misipawistik Cree Nation and the Grand Rapids town council want Hydro to suspend the work to automate the facility until all of the community's questions and concerns have been answered.
Grand Rapids Mayor Robert Buck says Hydro told leaders from both the town and the First Nation about the changes after the company had already begun installing the new system.
"Then they tell us, 'OK, this is what we are doing,' and expect our blessing or something," Buck told CBC News.
Buck says a breach in the dam in the 1990s was stopped only because there were Hydro staff on site to immediately react to the incident. Locals fear a similar situation could happen again, but without constant monitoring by staff.