(Originally underlined parts have been converted to capital
letters by myself.    R.L.)


                                  Lubicon Lake Indian Nation
                                  3536 - 106 Street
                                  Edmonton, Alberta T6J 1A4
                                  Phone:  403-436-5652
                                  Fax:  403-437-0719

October 04, 1994

Chief Ominayak's September 27th letter to Unocal Canada President
Fritz Perschon was faxed to Mr. Perschon on September 29th. 
Lubicon advisor Fred Lennarson received a telephone call from
C.G. (Gordon) Dunn of the ERCB at 5:20 that same afternoon --
notably later than normal working hours for the ERCB. 

As is clear from the September 28th mail-out communications with
Unocal and the ERCB typically come in matched pairs.  Almost
inevitably any exchange with either one of them is followed
shortly thereafter by a communication from the other -- usually
on the same subject and pressing the same point. 

Despite earlier assurances by confident Unocal representatives
that Lubicon opposition could simply be bought off, Chief
Ominayak's September 27th letter effectively ended the arrogant
notion that the Lubicons can somehow be talked into voluntarily
acceding to the existence of a huge new sour gas processing plant
adjacent to the proposed Lubicon reserve.  Lubicon refusal to go
along in turn presents a potentially serious legal problem for
the ERCB.

ERCB enabling legislation requires that the ERCB hold a public
hearing PRIOR to approval when a proposed energy project is
opposed by people who may be directly and adversely affected by
it.  In this case a huge new $10 million dollar sour gas
processing plant was not only approved without benefit of a
public hearing, it was approved based on perhaps deliberately
false information, the circumstances of the approval are at the
very least curious and the plant itself has actually been
hurriedly constructed presumably in an effort to try and insure
that a questionable approval cannot be reversed.  

Mr. Dunn told Fred Lennarson "The (ERCB) Board is prepared to
review the Unocal application and would like to talk about
timing". He then proposed the end of October or first part of
November -- a shorter than normal time frame also presumably on
purpose.  After some discussion with Lubicon representatives a
hearing was set for November 8th in Edmonton.  (Place and time
have not yet been established but will be communicated as soon as
they are available.)

ERCB hearings are almost always sleepy little affairs held
without fanfare in a small community somewhere near a proposed
energy project site after which the ERCB then quietly approves
the proposed project -- often without any reference or apparent
relation to the earnest submissions of the involved intervenors.
The purpose of such events is clearly not to facilitate a full
and public vetting of a proposed energy project but to create the
illusion that the legal and environmental niceties of a modern
western democracy are being observed without at the same time
seriously impeding large-scale exploitation of natural resources
by multi-national companies.

A full and public examination of the Unocal sour gas processing
plant in all of its aspects is of course exactly what the
Lubicons have in mind for the November 8th ERCB hearing.  In fact
the Lubicons propose to use the hearing as an opportunity for
everyone who has concerns about the Unocal sour gas processing
plant from any point of view -- including the presentation of
different kinds of legal evidence, medical evidence, biological
evidence, veterinary evidence, environmental evidence,
experimental evidence, experiential evidence, historical
evidence, anthropological evidence, economic evidence and
political evidence.   

(Continued in Part 2)