Woodpile at Romaine Complex: Hydro-Québec Working to Unblock Bottleneck

In light of the publication of the article “Québec Forest Waste at Romaine Jobsite” on the Radio-Canada Web site, Hydro-Québec would like to explain why logs are stacked near the Romaine-3 jobsite pending sale. Hydro-Québec would like to go ahead before the wood starts to rot. “There is a limit, which will soon be reached, and we need to move forward. We’d like to do it with our Innu partners, but there is a dispute between the Innus and their own partner,” said Daniel Lauzon, Hydro-Québec’s Director – Human Resources and Aboriginal Affairs.

More than 80% of wood cut at Romaine taken to sawmill

We find it regrettable that logs stacked near the Romaine-3 jobsite have not yet been utilized and we are working with the parties involved to come up with a solution.

Produits forestiers innus (PFI) was supposed to cut, stack and transport the wood. But at the transportation stage, there was a major conflict between the Innu company and its own partner, Rémabec.

The wood does belong to Hydro-Québec, because Hydro-Québec paid stumpage fees for the Romaine-3 reservoir, but if we decided to take it off the jobsite, without waiting for the Innu company to reach an agreement with its partner, that could make their conflict worse.

Commercial logging not to be confused with Hydro-Québec’s mitigation measures

It’s not true that Hydro-Québec paid too much to have the land cleared. The final cost of the clearing was actually quite close to our initial estimates.

Logging companies plan their projects based on the lowest cost for the wood harvested, while to Hydro-Québec, clearing land is one of the mitigation measures taken when a hydropower reservoir is created.

The cost of the wood cut is lower for logging companies for the following reasons:

Only areas with significant logging potential are targeted (maturity, density of stands).
Areas that are too hard to get to are abandoned (cost of building roads, bridges and workcamps too high per cubic metre of wood).
Their harvest planning is based on a longer period and a greater volume of wood (optimization of roads, bridges and workcamps built).
Many lumber mills are located near industrial logging sites, but that is not the case in the Romaine complex region, where no logging is done.

For information:

Mathieu Rouy
Hydro-Québec
514 289-5005
rouy.mathieu@hydro.qc.ca