Manitoba Hydro Amendment Passes
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The strongest monitoring and reporting requirement to date for Manitoba Hydro’s imported electricity was signed by Governor Tim Pawlenty. The provision included in the Environment and Energy Omnibus Bill (SF 2096) states:

The Legislative Electric Energy Task Force by January 1, 2008, and each year thereafter, the task force will request from the Manitoba Hydro Electric Board to provide information for each community that is a signatory of the Northern Flood Agreement, including South Indian Lake.

This information will include economic statistics, claims filed by these communities against Manitoba Hydro, and a report on the amount of shoreline damaged and repaired.

Manitoba Hydro exports 40 percent of its power to United States consumers, and Xcel Energy, the fourth largest utility in the United States, purchases approximately 25 percent of Manitoba Hydro’s export power. Most Minnesota consumers are unaware of the significant damage large-scale hydroelectric dams have caused to the indigenous communities and the environment of Manitoba.

The United States’ first victims of global warming
Relocating native communities is seen as the answer

The earth beneath much of Alaska is not what it used to be. The permanently frozen subsoil, known as permafrost, upon which the community of Newtok and many other Native Alaskan villages rest, is melting, yielding to warming air temperatures and a warming ocean as a result of global warming. Sea ice that would normally protect coastal villages is forming later in the year, allowing fall storms to pound away at the shoreline.

Erosion has made Newtok an island. The village is below sea level and sinking. The ragged wooden houses have to be adjusted regularly to level them on the shifting soil. The village is predicted to be washed away within a decade.The cost to move the community could be as high as $130 million, almost $413,000 for each citizen.

Members of this American Indian tribe say their identity is rooted in their isolation. It was the government, they say, that insisted decades ago that they and many other villages abandon their nomadic ways and pick a place to call home. The current village site was once a winter camp, and their forced relocation make them among the first climate refugees in the United States.

“We haven’t sat down as a society and said, how are we going to adapt to this?” said Michael Oppenheimer, a climate scientist at Princeton University and a lead author of a recent report by a United Nations panel on the potential impacts of global warming. "Just like we haven’t sat down and said, how are we going to reduce emissions? And both have to be done.”

Currently, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service has secured a new site, nine miles south, that could potentially be the community's new home. State and federal officials are skeptical because of the high cost.

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Fresh Energy proudly announces the retirement of Dee Long—tireless advocate, practical visionary, true friend. Join us to celebrate her life and work at a gala celebration on June 12 at the St. Paul Hotel, 5:30-10:00. See an online invitation. For tickets, contact Jenna Hartwig Wade at 651.727.7560 or wade@fresh-energy.org by Thursday, June 7.