'I'm not going anywhere': Resettlement offer comes as shock to Mud Lake residents
Watson Rumbolt says Mud Lake is home and he won't be taking government offer
One resident of Mud Lake, as well as legal representatives, is questioning the provincial government's motives in offering resettlement money for the community.
According to Watson Rumbolt, he isn't going anywhere.
"It's a job to say, 'Oh, I'm going to leave everything behind me for $250,000," Rumbolt told CBC News over the weekend.
On Thursday, the provincial government announced it was offering up to $270,000 per household for Mud Lake residents who wish to resettle from the community, which was devastated by flooding in May 2017, forcing dozens of people to flee.
But Rumbolt doesn't think many are going to take the offer — possibly three or four households, by his count.
"There's already been probably four or five that's already moved," he said.
With children and grandchildren living within walking distance of his home, situated next to the house in which his wife was born almost 70 years previously, Rumbolt is in no hurry to leave.
"As long as I got my family around me, I mean, I'm not going anywhere," he said.
Government assistance for resettling a community usually depends on a vote. The threshold is 75 per cent of a community's residents voting in favour of relocation.
The province sidestepped that process for Mud Lake, saying in a media release the reason is "a result of previous and potential flooding events which have been an ongoing concern for some residents" and because of the community's geographic location.
The province is leaving the decision to relocate or remain in the community up to each household.
Rumbolt echoes the future flooding concern. He said that while the years since 2017 have not seen anywhere near the same kind of flooding, the fear is still there.
"Every one of us, I think, in Mud Lake is worried about it.… [We're] more or less scared every spring, wondering what's going to happen," he said.
Questions needing answers
The offer of resettlement money comes during the ongoing class-action lawsuit brought against Nalcor Energy by residents of the area, alleging that the flooding was connected to the Muskrat Falls hydroelectric project just up river. Nalcor Energy has since been absorbed into N.L Hydro.
A 2017 independent assessment of the flooding concluded that the event was not due to Muskrat Falls but natural causes with unusually heavy rains and ice blocking the mouth of the Churchill River.
Halifax lawyer Ray Wagner, who is representing Mud Lake in the lawsuit, sees the offer as an admission of responsibility and liability for what's happened.
"I'm happy to hear that they're going to do the right thing," said Wagner.
But he says there was no communication to residents or legal counsel before the offer of resettlement funds and, as something their lawsuit was asking for to begin with, it came as a shock.
"We don't know what that means," Wagner said. "We have no idea how to quantify these issues. There's a whole host of questions that need to be answered."
Rumbolt sees a line between resident's complaints and resettlement money offered against "potential risks that may occur in the future," as Municipal Affairs Minister Krista Lynn Howell said in Thursday's media release.
"I think that they're offering us this … to try to get everybody to move, so that way if something happens they don't have to deal with Mud Lake no more," said Rumbolt.
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