"Canada’s Big Dams Produce Clean Energy, and High Levels of Mercury"

"OTTAWA — Protests. Hunger strikes. Sit-ins that disrupt construction. At the immense Muskrat Falls hydroelectric dam project in a remote and rugged part of Labrador, the indigenous people who live nearby have been raising louder and louder alarms.

But it is not about the dam itself. The controversy is over what will flow from it.

The protests are focused on a mostly overlooked side effect of hydroelectric projects all over Canada: The reservoirs behind the dams tend to develop high levels of methyl mercury, leading to mercury poisoning among people who eat fish or game caught downstream."

Ian Austen reports for the New York Times November 10, 2016.