I am a currently a resident of the Kaministiquia Community. Like the rest of this community, I have been blindsided and unjustly shocked by Hydro One’s Public Service Announcement of the chosen Waasigan Transmission Power Line that will make our land and one of the original beautiful Kaministiquia homesteads unliveable due to the most likely occurrence of water contamination and heighted mG from an increase in the Electrical Magnetic Frequency coming from the current corridor.
I grew up here and there is presently three generations living on my grandmother’s farm that I used to ride and play on as a child. Our family has decided to work together to ensure the care of my parents in the years to come who are now in their 70s.
The 100-year-old barn that has been maintained meticulously over the years still stands from when we used to swing from the hay loft ropes with neighbour friends. There is a mixture of tall and full old growth trees within planted trees by the original homesteader back in the early 1900s. The fields extend out around a standardized equine training ring and beyond fence lines for horses that is currently used for hay.
There is a pond that is 13 feet deep and extends for 122 meters in length and 60 meters in width. This pond that is used year-round for swimming, throwing in fishing lines, and pond hockey, spills out into a creek that feeds three other properties.
The trees surrounding it are dark, rich, and deep with silence, inhabited by many protected species such as the pileated woodpecker, white tailed deer and more. All these animals have been recorded via tree camera footage. This is a known habitat and marked regularly for territory by wolves. Brush Wolves are known and often seen, but since I have been a child I have also walked across the path of the larger Gray Wolves, the last a female one month ago.
The wolves from a den just up the line from the property make themselves known not only on camera, but with tracks and late evening greetings to one another surrounding the land. The entire parcel of property is used in all four seasons by the family and friends for activities such as bomb fires, hiking, horseback riding, snowshoeing, cross country skiing, pond hockey, potluck, sleighrides and was soon to be used for a developing learn to care/pet and groom/equine program for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities of all ages.
This announcement creates undue financial stress for not only our family but so many who operate businesses from their property, such as my parents. One of the specific reasons I had moved back up to this property was to enrich my established business as a Clinical Herbalist using plants and herbs. My two oldest children being Status Indians joked that not only did their ancestors’ land get stolen, now the Fort William District Freehold parcel of land that their names were due to be put on in title is currently under attack.
It is my understanding that in Ontario due to the now known and severe risk to the health of humans near Hydro Tower Power Lines, that to add another power line or increase the voltage of a current corridor the proponent must do a Health Management Assessment. This is what it states for Southern Ontario policy, are we not worth the same care here in Northern Ontario?
Our home is one of many that only as of the week of January 16th, 2023, residents found out that will be slated for destruction with landowners imminently displaced due to the heavy hand and humanitarian oversites of Hydro One. At the January 16th, 2023 Hydro One WTLP Open House we were informed by Bruce Hopper the WTPL Project Manager that the probable project commencement could be as early as 2024.
Hydro One’s lack of due diligence in their disclosure to this community or ANY of the potential communities impacted of the reasoning and public interest of the WTLP including but not limited to, the refusal upon request to disclose health management assessments, wildlife and land management assessments for known protected habitats, the disclosure of the highly likely contamination of water shed basins with surface and ground water included, deadlines for discovery and disclosure with the community for proper legal involvement of the residents to make an informed choice, and the lack of ability of Hydro One in this current economic climate to ever offer any of the residents reasonable and fair exchange of their property, not to mention attempting to remove long time multi-generational families from their land is not only criminal but highly unacceptable in all three levels of court.
All of this should have been disclosed to the community and completed prior to the announcement of the chosen WTPL route via news and radio media. This has caused severe emotional and psychological suffering and will create financial undue hardship for thousands of residents all along this line, not just isolated to us in Kaministiquia. It would also appear from community discussion with others here and to Dryden, that Hydro One did not only neglect to directly make aware those that would lose everything but did not even attempt to in person reach out to many that may not be in the direct line of fire of the WTPL but within 500 meters of the Hydro Tower Line in regard to any health management, wildlife, land, or water impacts. This is irresponsible, it is criminal, and in short should Hydro One continue with this proposed route it would appear to be theft of property. Our family has no intention of moving and will not see this property destroyed by the irresponsible and brutally negligent actions of Hydro One Networking Inc.
There will be an Information & Sharing Concerns meeting at the Kaministiquia Community Centre on Hwy 102 on Wednesday, January 25th at 7 pm for anyone who is interested in connecting with others who are trying to understand what is happening and to share grievances. Hydro One has been invited to attend.
Michelle Hamer
