Photo courtesy of Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency
The provincial government is being tight-lipped about Tazi Twe.
The future of the $630 million hydro-electric project near Black Lake is in doubt. SaskPower’s Board of Directors has weighed in, but no one is saying what direction it wants to go.
Back in May, SaskPower President, Mike Marsh, travelled all the way to Black Lake to inform members of the local First Nation that things had changed and there may no longer be a need for the project.
The problem is a slump in the uranium industry. Marsh says the mining sector is the biggest customer of power in the north, consuming about 80 per cent. Because it is laying off workers and shutting down mines, there might be no immediate need for the hydro-electric project.
SaskPower’s Board of Directors met in late August to review the project and make its recommendations, but the final decision is being left up to the provincial cabinet. Tazi Twe has come up for cabinet discussion twice, but at last report, the government was still reviewing the recommendations of the SaskPower Board of Directors.
SaskPower won’t comment either, saying it will be up to cabinet to make the decision. SaskPower won’t even say what the board is recommending.
The Tazi Twe project would have injected $1.3 billion into the local economy over 90 years. It has already received federal environmental approval, as well as approval from the Black Lake First Nation. It would be the only project of its kind in Saskatchewan.
The project’s website and Facebook page are inactive, with no new activity for several months.
MBC news has put in a request for an interview with SaskPower Minister, Dustin Duncan, but so far, there has been no response.
Black Lake is located in the far northeast part of the province, about 100 kilometres south of the Northwest Territories.