For more than a decade now, the $13 billion Muskrat Falls hydroelectric project has been generating a never-ending assemblage of crises in the public life of Newfoundland and Labrador. The dam’s promise of clean hydro power has been accompanied by menacing risks of methylmercury poisoning and catastrophic flooding that threaten people who live near the dam in Labrador. Meanwhile, the dismantling of public regulatory bodies, dubious investment finance, and the suppression of alternative energy sources have resulted in unmanageable public debt and a future of unaffordable heat and electricity.

Muskrat Falls: How a Mega Dam Became a Predatory Formation offers a multi-dimensional analysis of the social, political, and environmental problems generated by the hydro project. The volume covers Indigenous resistance to the dam, the role of journalism and social media, and the science and politics of methylmercury and geophysical stability. It contains scholarly essays, interviews, original artwork, photographs, and a short story impelled by Muskrat Falls.

Lisa Moore is the acclaimed author of the novels Caught, February, and Alligator. Caught was a finalist for the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize and the Scotiabank Giller Prize and is now a major CBC television series starring Allan Hawco. February won CBC’s Canada Reads competition, was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize, and was named a New Yorker Best Book of the Year and a Globe and Mail Top 100 Book. Alligator was a finalist for the Scotia Bank Giller Prize, won the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize (Canada and the Caribbean region), and was a national bestseller. Her story collection Open was a finalist for the Scotia Bank Giller Prize and a national bestseller. Her most recent work is a collection of short stories called Something for Everyone. Lisa lives in St. John’s, Newfoundland.

Lisa Moore's profile page

Stephen Crocker's profile page

“This searing indictment—economically, scientifically, politically, morally, artistically—of the Muskrat Falls development is a must-read for anyone affected by, or concerned about, the future of Indigenous Peoples, the state, and hydro power, both in Labrador and in Canada generally."

Daniel Macfarlane, author of Fixing Niagara Falls: Environment, Energy, and Engineers at the World’s Most Famous Waterfall

Muskrat Falls delves deeply and widely into what economically, environmentally and culturally ails the development....It's not light reading, but it is accessible, and given human face and voice where possible.

Joan Sullivan, The Telegram