The Churchill Falls power plant cost a little over $1.0 billion (about $6.1 billion in 2015) to build between 1969 and 1971. With an installed generating capacity of almost 6,000 megawatts, it was one of the largest if not the largest hydroelectric plant in operation at the time.Churchill Falls (Labrador) Corporation delivered the project on budget, achieved initial operating capacity five months ahead of schedule and finished the whole project a year ahead of schedule.
Revenge for the humiliation of Churchill Falls remains at the centre of provincial politics, as it has since the late 1970s. Redress of the grievance has been the most common term for the political goal of the Newfoundlanders, but as Danny Williams and the provincial Conservatives made it out in 2010, revenge was really their burning passion. Muskrat Falls was not merely Williams' legacy. It was the means by which Newfoundlanders would break what he called Quebec's stranglehold on his province's economic future in Labrador.
In this pair of posts, we will look first at Churchill Falls. The second, coming tomorrow, will look at the years since 1972, culminating in Muskrat Falls.
