This post originally appeared on VICE Canada.
Inuit hunters downstream from a massive $11 billion "clean" energy project in Labrador fear it will poison their food supply with methylmercury when flooding begins later this month.
When it's complete, the Muskrat Falls dam project in Canada's north will provide a wealth of reliable, non-fossil fuel electricity to Canada's east coast and eventually, the province hopes, New England. The company behind the project says it will produce a whopping 16.7 terawatt hours of electricity a year, reducing greenhouse gas emissions by the equivalent of taking 3.2 million cars off the road.
But while new, non-fossil fuel energy sources are becoming increasingly vital as the world confronts climate change, peer-reviewed Harvard research suggests the dam flooding will increase methylmercury levels downstream by 14 times within 120 hours, putting the local Inuit at risk of poisoning from the neurotoxin. Climate change has also increased the worry of methylmercury in Canada's north because the melting permafrost is expected to deposit more of the dangerous toxin, which can cause poor brain development and impaired learning.
On Monday afternoon, a small group of locals and Indigenous elders marched toward a part of the dam, the North Spur, as two RCMP vehicles followed close behind.
"I suspect that we will be in jail in a couple hours," one of the protesters Kirk Lethbridge told VICE News.
The protesters worry the North Spur wall of the dam could fail because it has a clay base—though the company behind the dam told VICE News its engineers are working to stabilize the area.
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