Reykjavík Grapevine - 13.07.2018, Qupperneq 24

There is little to no infrastructural
development in this northwest shire of
roughly 53 people, job growth is non-
existent, young people are fleeing the
area, and what few people remain are
almost all well into their old age. The
general sentiment of this community is
that they simply don’t matter to Reyk-
javík or the national government, and
have essentially been abandoned to
wither away.
In a small community like this, social
harmony is paramount, and disagree-
ments can cause rifts that last years.
Hvalárvirkjun, a proposed hydroelec-
tric project for the region, has become
a flashpoint issue for Árneshreppur. Its
supporters will tell you it will bring jobs,
road infrastructure, and greater electri-
cal power to the region, thereby increas-
ing their self-reliance and saving the
community. Its detractors will tell you
Hvalárvirkjun will destroy the natural
beauty that draws people to the region,
will not generate any positive returns
in time to actually save the commu-
nity, and will benefit a power company
owned by foreign interests far more
than anyone else.
It’s quite easy for those of us who live
in Reykjavík to speculate on what’s best
for a far-flung community like Árne-
shreppur, but what do the people living
there actually think? We traveled north
to spend time talking to people within
this community about Hvalárvirkjun.
What we found is that pressure to main-
tain social harmony has played just as
much a role in how people feel about
the project as the facts concerning the
project itself. It has already caused a rift
in the community that will take a long
time to repair. Meanwhile, everyone on
all sides of the issue agree: it didn’t have
to come to this.
What is
Hvalárvirkjun?
The project is being spearheaded by
VesturVerk, a contracting company
owned by the power company HS
Orka and the investment company
Gláma. HS Orka, in turn, is majority
controlled by Magma Energy Sweden
A.B. That company might sound famil-
iar to Grapevine readers, as it’s the same
company that was involved in gaining
control of geothermal energy rights
in southwest Iceland in 2010, with its
charismatic CEO Ross Beaty engaging in
questionable practices in his communi-
cations with the media, both in Iceland
and abroad, and being criticised for his
use of a Swedish puppet company to get
around Icelandic laws about non-Scan-
dinavians owning natural resources in
the country. Magma Energy Sweden’s
parent company, Alterra, (FKA Magma
Energy) is based in Canada. Today, Beaty
is chairman of HS Orka.
The project itself is not a single dam
but a series of dams: one at Vatnalau-
talón, one at Hvalárlón, and one at
Evindarfjarðarlón, all of them natural
reservoirs in the Highlands of the West-
fjords that feed rivers that run through
Árneshreppur. When the dams are
completed, the project is predicted to
be a 55MW plant with a rated capacity
of 320 Gigawatt hours (Gwh) of power
per year, while VesturVerk estimates
the total power needs for the entire
Westfjords is about 260 Gwh per year.
The project also aims to connect to the
national power grid. Construction, if
ultimately approved, is estimated to
begin in 2020, with completion and
first operations beginning no earlier
than 2024.
The right to live
where you want
As we head off the well-maintained
Route 1 to reach these northern shores,
the first thing we notice is the roads
immediately decline in maintenance.
Potholes abound, paving is old and
uneven. Road conditions are actually
a pretty fair indicator of when you’ve
reached a truly rural region of the
country, as poor road conditions have
been endemic of smaller rural commu-
nities all around the country. It’s one
small example of what people in these
areas mean when they say they’ve been
ignored by the national government.
Our first stop is Hólmavík, a village
in the neck of the Westfjörds, an impor-
tant junction for the central Westfjörds
and home to 375 people. Here, we spoke
with Ingibjörg Benediktsdóttir, one of
five people on the municipal board for
Strandabyggð, the region where Hólma-
vík resides.
While emphasising that she hasn’t
received “public proposals from neutral
parties or anyone who's against the
plant,” Ingibjörg takes a practical
approach to the matter.
"As it is today, I want to get this plant,
because I know we'll get a lot out of it,”
she says, referring to the frequency with
which the local school and public pool
have to rely on diesel-powered genera-
tors when the electricity fails. “But I
don't know what we would gain from
a national park, for example. No one
has told me that. I've just taken a look
at Snæfellsnes and what they've gotten
out of their national park. I also haven't
heard how we can have both a plant and
a national park."
Ingibjörg sums up local sentiment
with a statement that we would hear
many times from plant supporters:
“This is about being able to continue
living in the countryside. This is why
people feel as though they need to
support this project. No one has shown
us any other choice. We want to build up
a society, we want to attract industry,
we want more jobs, but we can't offer
anything."
The northern
shore
Once we climb over Route 643, driving
becomes considerably more challenging,
and descending into the area, you get a
clearer idea of just how sparsely popu-
lated it is up here. Only 53 people live
in these 707 square kilometres, and it
shows: a farmhouse and barn are mere
specks on the floor of a sweeping valley;
tall, steep mountains wall in a deep
fjord, conveying so much majesty you
don’t at first notice the two or three tiny
clusters of buildings along the shore.
Yet the physical distance between
Árneshreppur’s hamlets and villages is
deceiving. This is actually a very tight-
knit community. Few know this better
than Eva Sigurbjörnsdóttir, who is
not only the owner-operator of Hótel
Djúpavík, where we stayed; she is also
the head of Árneshreppur’s five-seat
municipal council, and the strongest
advocate in the region for Hvalárvirkjun.
She sees Hvalárvirkjun as the key to
not just meeting the current needs of
the region, but building it up for further
development.
"There are already people standing in
line, waiting to opening companies, who
From the harbour at Norðurfjörður Eva Sigurbjörnsdóttir, head of Árneshreppur council
Pétur Guðmundsson of Ófeigsfjörður
When people talk about Iceland’s economic
boom days, they are largely referring to the
greater Reykjavík area. Roads are repaired
and renewed, construction cranes are every-
where, new businesses are opening all the
time, and both city and national authorities
work overtime to keep up with the pace of
expansion, as planning proposals regarding
housing and transportation are set to trans-
form Iceland’s capital region. Árneshreppur is
a part of the other Iceland.