Alta power station

Alta power station (Norwegian: Alta kraftverk) is a hydroelectric power station located on the Alta-Kautokeino River in Finnmark county, Norway. The power station is located in Alta Municipality, just north of the border with Kautokeino Municipality. It is operated by Statkraft, a Norwegian state-owned electric company, and it opened in 1987. The station is located 40 kilometres (25 mi) from the mouth of the Alta River, and receives most of its water from the great Finnmarksvidda plateau. Below the power station, the river has salmon, and is a good fishing river. The station consists of two generators, at 100 megawatts (130,000 hp) and 50 MW (67,000 hp), respectively. The station utilises a 185 metres (607 ft) fall from the dam at the end of the 18 km (11 mi) long reservoir Virdnejávri. From the 145 m (476 ft) tall Virdnejávr Dam to the end of the power station, the river is dry for about 2 km (1.2 mi). It is the tallest dam in the country.

The background for the controversy was a published plan by the Norwegian Water Resources and Energy Directorate (NVE) that called for the construction of a dam and hydroelectric power plant that would create an artificial lake and inundate the Sámi village of Máze. After the initial plan met political resistance, a less ambitious project was proposed that would cause less displacement of Sámi residents and less disruption for reindeer migration and wild salmon fishing for which the river is widely regarded as the best Atlantic Salmon river in the world. In 1978, the popular movement against development of the Alta-Kautokeino waterway (Folkeaksjonen mot utbygging av Alta-Kautokeinovassdraget) was founded, creating an organizational platform for first opposing and then resisting construction work. This group and others filed for an injunction in Norwegian courts against the Norwegian government to prevent construction from commencing. In the fall of 1979, as construction was ready to start, two acts of civil disobedience started. At the construction site itself at Stilla, a number of activists sat down and blocked the machines from starting their work; and at the same time, a number of Sámi activists camped outside the Norweg

Power station data from Wikidata (CC0). Summary from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA).