A power struggle over power supply

Municipalities want a say in the new small-scale electricity producers

Les Leyne
Times Colonist
October 26, 2006

Eight hundred municipal delegates arose as one yesterday to defend their autonomy from those conniving scoundrels in the government of British Columbia.

If there's one thing that guarantees unanimity in getting a resolution passed at the Union of B.C.

Municipalities convention, it's any whiff of a threat to municipal powers.

And it's clear that B.C.'s mayors and councillors see the provincial government's effort earlier this year to smooth the way for small-scale power producers as an intrusion into their domain. All but two delegates supported a resolution condemning the move, which is as close to unanimous as you can get in B.C. politics.

The only problem is that the one guy they need to join the movement is the one holding all the cards -- Energy Minister Richard Neufeld. And he had a simple one-word response to reporters who asked him if he would bow to the will of the convention and repeal the law.

"No." The B.C. Liberals tucked a little boilerplate paragraph into a grab-bag bill last spring that had the effect of stripping local governments of their zoning powers when it comes to independent power projects.

There is a lot of provincial interest riding on those sorts of projects. There is an electricity production deficit in B.C. and B.C. Hydro is years away from starting any major new projects to deal with it. The province's energy plan doesn't even put much faith in B.C.

Hydro to restore self-sufficiency. Much of the emphasis on new generation is on private producers, who are expected to come up with a large number of small-scale projects to supply incremental increases.

And half of them are expected to be clean power, like run-of-the-river projects, where streams are partially diverted through turbines. They may be small, but they still involve transmission lines and streamside construction at sensitive sites.

And some local governments are taking heat about them, so the zoning for such projects is getting controversial in places like the Squamish-Lillooet Regional District. It has the perfect terrain for such projects, and has been dealing with a number of them.

It's when they started listening to local objections and balking at approving them that the trouble started.

Benign, clean, renewable power is a provincial priority that trumps whatever worries people living near the projects might have, in the Liberals' view. So they removed the potential zoning hurdles earlier this year, which is what brought the delegates to the barricades yesterday.

As the UBCM sees it: "Zoning approval would no longer be required" (if the project met certain conditions) "and zoning was seen as an impediment to the project moving ahead." The Squamish-Lillooet people organized the resolution and went to the point of hiring a consultant to shepherd support for it. It was an impressive effort that got delegates from the Interior, the north Island and Maple Ridge all objecting to the Liberal move.

All to no avail. Neufeld amplified his "no" slightly. B.C. needs all the power it can get its hands on, in just about any (non-nuclear) way, shape or form. Municipalities don't get to zone forestry operations, or mines, or dams.

Why should they get to zone small power projects? At a panel discussion later in front of 100 or so delegates, he alluded only vaguely to the disagreement. The power shortfall has been developing for the past several years and is considered unacceptable, he said. More electricity has to come from somewhere in B.C., and if it has to be from someone's backyard, so be it.

As he put it: "It doesn't magically arrive from somewhere else." The move last spring to remove the zoning hurdle breaks the spirit of a deal they signed earlier to co-operate and get along with one another, which is another sore point with the municipal leaders. So the objections have been developing for months, they culminated in a motion supported by everyone in the room, and it will all apparently go nowhere.

All in all an interesting lesson in how provincial interests take precedence, no matter how understanding and accommodating they try to be.

Just So You Know: The sidebar to the issue is that some local governments have been successful in extracting hundreds of thousands of dollars from project proponents in return for the rezonings.

Authorities are designating remote spots far out in the bush to allow for benign little power plants, and getting cash payments that run for 30 or 40 years.

Vancouver Sun energy writer Scott Simpson detailed the practice a few years ago, but it's an uncomfortable topic for all concerned, so no one seems to want to raise it.

leyne@island.net