6 years after Mud Lake flooding, the fight for compensation drags on
Crown corporation in charge of Muskrat Falls dam denies responsibility for disaster
The nightmares lasted years after the floods. Helpless, Watson Rumbolt would watch the Churchill River swallow up the people he loved.
"I'd see my grandkids floating away," said Rumbolt, still emotional — and incredulous — six years after his town was submerged in icy sludge. "People'd been here for over 200 years, and it never ever happened before."
The water level around Mud Lake, an isolated community of just 40 people in central Labrador, jumped several feet in a matter of minutes on May 17, 2017, during the first spring thaw after the nearby Muskrat Falls dam was flooded.
Rumbolt was the last resident airlifted to safety.
"It's a day I'll never forget because I had to lock my door and I looked around and I'm sorry," said Rumbolt, pausing to swallow back tears. "I'd worked 35 years then to get what I got and not knowing what's gonna happen or whether you'll have a home to come back to, it was hard."
Six years on, certain images remain ingrained in his mind, he said. There's the freezer, flipped and floating in the basement, surrounded by bags of berries and caribou meat. And the neighbour in her 80s wading through the frigid brown water to escape.
Mud Lake recovered, in part. Bowed floors have been fixed. Windows and doors replaced. But some homes were destroyed beyond repair — monuments to a catastrophe many residents believe was entirely avoidable. People like Rumbolt say they're still bitter — and still believe they should be compensated.
Painful process
On behalf of residents affected by the floods, a class-action lawsuit was launched in 2017 against the Newfoundland and Labrador government and Nalcor Energy, the Crown corporation responsible for the Muskrat Falls project. Both have repeatedly denied responsibility for the floods.
The class action was certified in 2019, but the province was removed from the suit after a successful appeal. The lawsuit continues against Nalcor, but progress is painfully slow, according to residents interviewed by CBC/Radio-Canada.
Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro, which swallowed up Nalcor after years of scandals related to Muskrat Falls, must still deliver millions of pages of documents to the lawyers leading the class action. Poring over that paper will take months. A trial could still be years away, according to lawyer Ray Wagner.
"They're going to spend millions of dollars defending this case and the case, you know, is not worth $100 million. It's not a huge case," said Wagner, adding the litigation could, however, be significant for determining future liability for future floods.
A spokesperson for Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro refused to answer questions about the class action because the case is before the courts. The province, backed by an independent engineer's report commissioned in 2017, has previously stated the floods were the result of "natural causes," such as the high amount of rain that fell prior to and during the flooding.
Wagner said he's not convinced and his Halifax-based firm's experts refute the report. He said he believes the Muskrat Falls dam contributed "materially" to high amounts of ice buildup and sedimentation in the Churchill River. Those factors increased the risks for flooding when Nalcor spilled water from the dam in the spring of 2017, he said.
"Nalcor or the government didn't make it rain, but they sure have changed the way that the rain came down the stream," Wagner said, adding that he believes the executives managing the project didn't take appropriate measures to reduce the risks of flooding.
Losing patience
As the suit drags on, residents like John Cyrille Chiasson say they're losing patience.
"This happened to us six years ago," said Chiasson, a resident of Mud Lake Road, on the Happy Valley-Goose Bay side of the Churchill River, who almost drowned during the floods. He and his wife waded to a nearby cabin, where they spent the night on the second floor without a working cellphone and without firewood. They burned furniture to survive.
Chiasson received federal emergency funds in 2017, but the money didn't cover all the damage.
"All we ever think is, is this flood going to happen again? Are we going to flood again?" he said in his kitchen, surrounded by photos of the damage.
'Gutting' the class action?
Last September, the provincial government, without accepting liability for the floods, announced a relocation package for Mud Lake residents. Each household can receive up to $270,000 but must agree to move away from Mud Lake.
The money is not contingent on a vote from the community, as has been the case with previous relocation programs.
Only people with property in the town of Mud Lake are eligible; residents like Chiasson don't qualify. Rumbolt can apply for the money, but he said it isn't nearly enough to move and purchase a similar home across the river.
According to a briefing note obtained by CBC News, as of last February, 10 households had agreed to participate in the program, costing $2.57 million to the provincial treasury. The deadline to apply for the relocation money is June 30.
Wagner said he believes the government is trying to "gut" the class action, paying out money to flood victims in order to reduce the value of a future court settlement.
"Fundamentally you have to question the morality of that," Wagner said.
Rumbolt said he believes the entire situation could have been avoided had the government never approved the Muskrat Falls project.
Former premier Dwight Ball called the dam and its transmission system the worst economic mistake in the province's history. Questions remain regarding the project's reliability in winter. A lengthy commission of inquiry into the project revealed the executives at the helm took "unprincipled steps" to move Muskrat Falls forward, withholding key information about costs and risk.
"The people of Labrador never wanted this project," said Rumbolt. But like his neighbours, he believes he's been left to deal with the project's unintended consequences.
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