“How’s that electric bill working for you now?

It’s difficult for most Albertans to decipher the complexities of Alberta’s deregulated electricity system, but it is not difficult to conclude that our so-called market-based electricity system is not working. One only needs to read the bottom line of last month’s electricity bill for confirmation.

Over the last couple of weeks, industry representatives provided testimony to Premier Alison Redford’s Transmission Review Committee hearings. The Alberta Electric Systems Operator (AESO) and other industry representatives praised our market-based system as a shining example of the success of deregulation. I have a question for these representatives: “What market-based system?”

The AESO prices electricity approximately every two hours for Alberta’s wholesale electricity market. Every two hours generators offer to sell their electricity based on market demand. This is how the price is set, and it is called the stacking order. The stacking order is a simple creation of the AESO, and it favours the generators and transmission line companies at the expense of the average consumer.

For example, when the AESO requires 8,000 megawatts (MW) to supply the market for the next two hours, hydroelectric power might offer to provide 4,000 MW of electricity to Alberta’s market for free. Coal generators might offer to sell 3,800 MW for $45 dollars a megawatt. The remaining 200 MW might be provided (bid) to the market by other suppliers for $450 a megawatt. This completes the total 8,000 MW required by the AESO to meet the expected demand.

AESO accepts hydro’s offer first, and then accepts coal’s offer and so on. This is called stacking.

How is this price passed along to the consumer? All the generation suppliers get paid the top rate of $450 a megawatt — regardless of what price they were willing to sell to the market. In this example, as long as demand remains close to the 8,000 MW level for the next two hours, consumers pay the full price.

If this wasn’t bad enough, when hydro and co-generated electricity in Alberta drive the wholesale price of electricity to $0MW (fee), the AESO interferes and resets the bidding.

Alberta’s electricity system is not a market-based system. It is a scam that guarantees the maximum price for the lowest cost electricity.”

“I always enjoy reading Jim’s views on different issues, but I do want to correct the record on some of the issues he addressed in last week’s editorial about me. Jim suggested that it was inappropriate for me, as the Wildrose Party candidate, to also work for RETA, an organization which opposes the Heartland Transmission Project.

Unless they are independently wealthy, most candidates seeking public office need to also be employed. Since my background is in politics and public affairs, it is quite natural that I would work for an advocacy organization like RETA at this stage before the election has even begun. If I am successful and become the MLA, I will obviously stop working for RETA at that point. I agree with Jim that an MLA must be the MLA for everyone, but there is nothing wrong with a candidate being employed with an advocacy organization before they have the power that comes with holding elected office.

I’ll also note that there is a big difference between public advocacy and lobbying. (I know because I use to work for the federal industry minister and was periodically contacted by lobbyists). RETA is a public advocacy organization that speaks on behalf of citizens and seeks to raise public awareness. There is no requirement for me to register as a lobbyist because I am not a lobbyist and never have been.

What’s actually going on here is that, as a resident of Sherwood Park, I feel passionately about the need to stop the overhead Heartland Line from going through. That is one of the key reasons why I decided to run for Wildrose in this election. When given the opportunity to join RETA’s team, I had another opportunity to advocate for the people of Sherwood Park on an issue that I feel passionately about. There is nothing inappropriate or unsavoury about advocating for the interests of members of this community whose concerns have been ignored by the government.”

One additional comment about the Sherwood Park Independent is worth making. Its publisher (Jim Ford) is a long time PC activist – this week’s edition of the paper also touts his extensive involved with the PC party. (“I have performed several decades of federal and provincial Progressive Conservative involvement”). Jim is a nice fellow, but he should acknowledge that his involvement with the PC party may be part of the reason why he opposes the work that RETA is doing.

We’ve noted in the past that Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich has endorsed the idea of burying the line. Yesterday, the New Hampshire Senate voted 23-1 in favour of putting significant restrictions on the project. (The one vote against was from a Senator who thought that the guarantees provided by the New Hampshire constitution covered the issues in the legislation – he was not opposed to the proposals on merit.) The bill included protection of the rights of private property owners and the creation of a commission to develop policies for burying power lines. (This bill still needs to be passed in New Hampshire’s lower house and approved by the governor, although with margins that wide the legislature could easily overrule a veto by the governor).

This begs the question – why is the government in New Hampshire listening and the government in Alberta not listening? There are a lot of possible reasons, but it probably has a lot to do with the fact that the government in Alberta has not had to listen to the people for a very long time. We’ve had the same government for 40 years and no effective opposition until now. MLAs in the governing party are not able to represent their constituents if what those constituents want is different from what the government wants. Citizens are not able to recall their MLAs or initiate referenda. Because the democratic environment is much more dynamic in New Hampshire (relatively independent legislators listen to their constituents and are able to speak and vote based on those concerns), the Northern Pass Project is going to be affected by what the people want, in a way that the Heartland Transmission Line has not been up until now.

Perhaps one of the most important things we need to do in Alberta in the next election is demand real democracy. If Alberta had a political system where MLAs had to represent their constituents, the Heartland Transmission Line would never have made it this far.

1) Revise the Mandate of AESO – The Alberta Electrical System Operator (AESO) is the organization that is charged with making initial recommendations about building new transmission lines. However, AESO is set up in a way that gives it a bias towards over-building. (Current energy minister Ted Morton said that when he was running for the leadership of the PC party). In our view, the mandate of AESO should be to identity cases where transmission lines are required to ensure further development, but also to take into consideration the affect that an increase in transmission costs will have on potential development and try to find ways of minimizing that cost.

2) Make the AUC Truly Independent – The Alberta Utilities Commission (AUC) is a quasi-judicial body which reviews proposed transmission developments. Currently, members of the AUC can be appointed and removed by the government at will. This significantly reduces the likelihood that the AUC would ever refuse an application which the government was in favour of. The AUC needs to be made entirely independent. Members of the AUC should be like judges – appointed for extended terms and able to operate without fear of being removed in the middle of their term.

3) Repeal Bill 50 – This legislation allows the government to skip the normal needs-assessment process for transmission lines. In our view, if a power line is needed, then the normal needs-assessment process should bare out that conclusion. If a power line is not needed, then it should not be built.

4) Develop a Natural Gas Strategy – Natural gas is cheap, and a lot cleaner than many of the alternatives. Natural gas power plants can be built near the places where power is needed, often at a much lower cost than transmission lines. Therefore, a provincial natural gas strategy to encourage the use of natural gas to produce power close to the places where it is needed would reduce the need for big transmission lines and save Albertans a lot of money on their power bills.

5) Give Albertans an Opportunity to Sell Electricity They Generate Back to the Grid – The best way to encourage power generation close to where it is needed and minimize the need for transmission lines is to allow every consumer of power to also be a producer of power. For example, if a citizen wants to invest in solar panels for their roof, then they should be able to sell the power they generate back to the grid. This concept has been called ‘net metering’ – at the end of each month, consumers would pay the difference between the cost of the power they produced and the cost of the power they used. (Or they would receive the difference if they produced more than they consumed). Everyone, from individual families to big industrial operations, should be given the opportunity and the incentive to do net metering, provided that the excess power they generated could be used in areas accessible through the existing power grid.

6) Bury Transmission Lines When They are Near People – The previous 5 points will reduce but not eliminate the building of transmission lines. In cases where they are needed, they should be buried when they run near where people live, work, or go to school.

7) Allow Anyone to Bid on Transmission Line Construction – Some companies in other parts of the world have a lot of experience burying transmission lines and can do it at a much lower cost than the costs presented by AltaLink and Epcor during the Heartland hearings. It’s a no-brainer to allow all companies the equal opportunity to bid on transmission infrastructure. This makes it easier and cheaper to minimize the impacts of transmission lines on communities.

These changes would ensure the existence of a strong and affordable transmission system for all Albertans. Unlike the proposed over-build, they would make sure that Albertans can have reliable access to power at the lowest possible cost and with the least possible negative impacts on their quality of life.

The proposed Heartland Transmission Line starts south of Edmonton, and travels north along the east site of the city to the Industrial Heartland. Candidates in the affected ridings, especially in Sherwood Park, Strathcona-Sherwood Park, Fort Saskatchewan-Vegreville, and Athabasca-Redwater are already seeking to engage with their constituents on this issue.

“I’m finding the Heartland Transmission Line to be a central issue in a lot of people’s minds,” said Sherwood Park Wildrose candidate Garnett Genuis. “They want the line buried, or better yet not built at all. The almost complete silence of members of other parties on this issue is really setting up a clear choice in voters’ minds. If you oppose the overhead line, then vote for me. If you support the overhead line, then vote for somebody else.”

Travis Olson, Wildrose candidate in Athabasca Redwater, feels particularly strongly about this issue and is a strong supporter of RETA’s work on it. “There is no need for this Heartland Line. Experts at the U of C public policy school, the Fraser Institute, and the Industrial Power Consumers Association of Alberta agree that these lines are completely unnecessary and will scare business out of our province by driving up power bills. I commend RETA for their hard work on this issue – they are working, as I am, to bring greater attention to the economic and community impacts of this unnecessary overbuild.”

Shannon Stubbs, Wildrose candidate in Fort Saskatchewan-Vegreville sees the impact of these lines first hand: “I recently talked to a third generation farmer in the area and he explained very clearly to me how the lines will destroy his farm and destroy his business and he won’t get fair, full and timely compensation.  And that’s the truth about these transmission lines- they will disrupt families, businesses, farms, and land and property value, and schools, all along the routes.”

Paul Nemetchek, Wildrose candidate in Strathcona, has spoken out previously about the problems with Bill 50, the importance of RETA’s work, and the need to stop the Heartland Line as soon as possible. PC candidates have yet to be selected in all of these ridings, but the PC government is rushing ahead full steam on the Heartland Line. These four Wildrose candidate are all in ridings which the Wildrose has a strong chance of winning. Unless the government changes direction on this, the PC candidates selected in these four ridings will have a very tough time.

“Many Albertans have been following the proceedings of the Critical Transmission Review Committee with great interest. This is the committee established in early December by the Alberta government to review the need for the two north-south transmission lines dubiously called “critical” by the government.

The vast majority of presentations to the committee have been opposed to the building of these lines, calling them unnecessary or significant overbuilds. Business and industry associations have said the absurdly high costs of the lines will drive business and industry out of Alberta because they cannot afford any more increases in our already skyrocketing electricity costs.

Other presentations have charged that the primary reason for all these new lines is to export electricity to the United States, with Alberta ratepayers picking up 100 per cent of the infrastructure costs while transmission companies own the lines and reap guaranteed annual investment returns of nine per cent on the infrastructure value.

Companies such as Enmax say the new lines are not needed because cleaner natural gas-fired electricity in southern Alberta will address any new power requirements there.

Of course a few presentations, such as those from AltaLink and Atco, each proposing a north-south line and hoping to reap millions of dollars in annual profits, suggest these lines are necessary.

Unfortunately, the Heartland power line is not part of this review. If one or more of the north-south lines is not built, the Heartland line will make no sense whatsoever because it was to connect the two. And with oilsands companies deciding it is cheaper to ship raw bitumen through pipelines to the United States and China, the Industrial Heartland will not see the nine upgraders anticipated by the government.

The primary reason for the Heartland line was to provide coal-fired power to all of these upgraders. The upgrading industry says it doesn’t need outside electricity because it can more efficiently co-generate its own cleaner electricity.

This indicates that the Heartland line is the least needed of all the so-called “critical” lines, yet Premier Alison Redford says it’s the most needed line and indeed yanked it out of the Critical Transmission Review Committee process.

And the government wonders why Albertans are upset with the way electricity generation and transmission is run in our province.”

Official results have yet to be released in the nomination, however twitter is abuzz with the rumour that former mayor Cathy Olesen won. As many of you will recall, Cathy was booted from office in the last mayor election because voters wanted a local champion who would fight for a hospital and against the transmission lines. The current mayor Linda Osinchuk was seen as that local champion, while Olesen had failed to advocate strongly for the community. (You can see coverage of that result here: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/story/2010/10/19/edmonton-olesen-mayor-strathcona-county.html). Let’s hope the twitter rumours are false, and that Calahasen has pulled an upset victory.

Meanwhile, south of the border, Newt bury-the-line Gingrich pulled a big upset in the South Carolina Republican primary, beating establishment candidate Mitt Romney by more than 10%. We’ve written previously about Gingrich’s support for undergrounding. His success in South Carolina will give this concept even more momentum.

The editor writes, “…yet here we are with a 500kV power line to the Heartland waiting to start and we’re wanting to export unrefined oil” to the U.S. The Heartland power line might make sense if there was going to be substantive refining of bitumen in the Alberta Industrial Heartland, but makes little sense when our raw bitumen is being exported to the U.S. for upgrading.

At a meeting January 17, 2012, Elk Island Public Schools Superintendent Bruce Beliveau, Colchester School Principal Bill Suter and Colchester Parents’ Association President Gabe Chemello made it clear to AltaLink and EPCOR that the school would close down if the Heartland line was built above-ground. Parents have been polled several times over the past year and just before the AUC hearing last spring, 95% said they would pull their children out of the school because they were not willing to put their children’s health and safety at risk so close to an overhead double-circuit 500kV power line.

There are hundreds of studies reporting significantly increased risks of childhood leukemia, other cancers, nervous system dysfunctioning, and many other serious health problems in children exposed over a prolonged period to overhead high voltage line EMFs. If the Heartland line was built above ground, Colchester students would be exposed to these hazardous EMFs and toxic corona clouds up to 6 hours a day, 5 days a week, and 10 months a year.

Darin Watson, VP Major Projects for AltaLink and Bruce Brandell, EPCOR (Team Lead – Heartland Transmission Project), listened to these concerns, and Mr. Watson surprised others at the meeting by offering to share the costs with the provincial government to bury part of the Heartland line near the school.  In this news release, the Colchester Parents’ Association indicated it “is very keen to work with AltaLink and the Alberta Government on this new proposal.” However, Chemello noted “that past experience with AltaLink during the hearings makes it difficult to believe that this is a good-faith offer.” (Also see this iNews 880 coverage.)

RETA certainly agrees and hopes this is not another cruel joke by AltaLink, as it has done on previous occasions. For example, AltaLink and EPCOR encouraged thousands of directly and negatively impacted residents by including an underground option in their application to the AUC to build the Heartland line. However, as soon as the AUC hearing started, it became clear the applicants had never been serious about the underground option, and were simply leading residents down the garden path.

We can only hope the Alberta Government is open to this cost-sharing proposal by AltaLink, especially considering the government would have to come up with the minimum $20 million to accommodate the Colchester students in a new school or expanded existing school if the power line is built above ground. Also, it seems only fair that the provincial government should accept this proposal because it has foisted this line on Strathcona County residents in the first place.

All eyes will be on this latest development.

Brenda Astle:

“Are you kidding? The only issues worth talking about in the search for a replacement for Sherwood Park MLA Iris Evans are the Heartland Transmission Project and the Strathcona Community Hospital (“Don’t talk to me about power lines, hospital,” Jan. 17 News).

We are in desperate need of an MLA that will represent the constituents of Sherwood Park and speak up for what we want.

Evans remained far too quiet on both issues when it would have counted most. Let’s not make that mistake with her replacement. We must continue to fight against this Heartland Transmission line.

It is far from a dead issue and I want to know what a new MLA will stand for on this issue.”

RETA’s own John Kristensen:

“The Jan. 17 column in the Sherwood Park News (“Don’t talk to me about power lines, hospital”) suggested that the decision on the Heartland Transmission Project has already been made and there’s no point discussing the matter any further, especially during the next few months leading up to a provincial election.

Wow. That’s a defeatist attitude. Yes, maybe the cards have been stacked against us as we have battled this unnecessary line during the past three-and-a-half years, and yes, maybe the public consultation and Alberta Utilities Commission (AUC) hearing processes were shams, but we’re certainly not going to give up.

We, the County of Strathcona, and others have appeals before the AUC and the courts. The Critical Transmission Review Committee is reviewing the need for two new north-south high voltage lines, which could have huge implications on the Heartland line. One of the purposes of the Heartland line was to connect the two north-south lines, and if one of these is not built, the Heartland line will make no sense whatsoever.

But perhaps the most important reason we are not giving up, and which presents our biggest opportunity, is the provincial election sometime this spring.

The building of an overhead Heartland line, which will result in the closing of one of our longest-standing and most recognized schools, Colchester Elementary School, and will negatively affect thousands of County residents, is beyond a doubt the biggest issue to hit our community in years.

If that is not an election issue, I don’t know what is.

Every voter in Sherwood Park, Strathcona and the other constituencies to be crossed by the Heartland line should ask all of the candidates in the upcoming election, regardless of political stripe, to convince the Alberta government to either stop the Heartland line, or to bury it when it runs close to residential areas, schools and daycares.

It is the Alberta government that has been pushing for the line to be built in our community; passed Bill 50, which legislated the building of the line; removed the Heartland line from the review of other so-called “critical” lines, and gave the final sign-off for the line to be built in the Sherwood Park Greenbelt.

And that’s why the issue must be raised as the key issue by county residents leading up to and during the provincial election.”

Some presenters indicated the fact the lights stayed on during recent record cold temperatures showed the transmission system doesn’t require a multibillion dollar upgrade as proposed by the Alberta Government and the Alberta Electric System Operator (Calgary Herald).

The CTRC, established by the Alberta Government in an attempt to show it actually cares what Albertans think about power transmission, is meeting with selected groups and associations, and will submit a report to the government in February. Many are skeptical that this is but one more meaningless process about electricity transmission in our province which is controlled by a few large corporations that have close ties to the P.C. government.

See this earlier RETA blog for details on the CTRC.

The editorial includes the following:

“We all know about that 500 kV monstrosity that’s looming in the not-too-distant future. In fact, that future is so near that it’s likely to be a moot point by the time a new MLA is elected to replace the retiring Iris Evans. I don’t want to hear any election campaign promises about fighting and/or burying the power line. Those battles have been fought and have largely been lost. The final decision on the project rests with the Alberta Court of Appeals, not the Sherwood Park MLA. No amount of MLA campaigning will positively affect the court’s final decision.”

The defeatist attitude in this editorial completely ignores the facts. While there are ongoing appeals before the AUC and the Court of Appeal, it was a GOVERNMENT decision to pass bill 50 which skipped over the normal needs assessment process for the Heartland line, it was a GOVERNMENT decision to not allow open bidding on this project (which would have allowed proposals by international companies with a long history of burying transmission lines who would not have presented inflated cost estimates), and it was a GOVERNMENT decision to push forward the Heartland Line while putting other Bill 50 transmission lines on hold.

Any MLA could make a real difference by (1) opposing Bill 50, (2) demanding a more open needs assessment and bidding process for transmission infrastructure, and (3) refusing to vote confidence in any government that is unwilling to suspend construction on the Heartland Line immediately.

The Sherwood Park News is dead wrong on this – the Heartland Transmission Project will be a key issue for voters in the next election and voters will demand that their MLA use all the power they have to stop this unneeded and dangerous transmission line from going through.

Please send a letter to the editor reminding the News how important this issue is to Sherwood Park residents and to all Albertans: http://www.sherwoodparknews.com/feedback1/LetterToEditor.aspx.

The lines at issue in this particular story are the two planned North-South transmission lines, currently the subject of a ‘review’ in Calgary and Edmonton. (As this story demonstrates, this review is yet another sham-consultation aimed at giving government action the appearance of being above-board). ATCO and AltaLink have revealed that they have already spent $200 million getting ready for these lines. The government has now asked the companies to avoid ‘unnecessary’ further expenditures, but either way these costs will likely be passed on to rate-payers. How absurd that Alberta’s consumers are already facing their sentence before they have even stood trial and had a chance to defend their interests!

The companies in this case spent rate-payers’ money before the approval process was over with the full knowledge and permission of the government. As noted by an Alberta Energy spokesman quoted in the article, companies were authorized to spend money to ‘prepare for the construction of the lines before the completion of the approval process.

When it comes to the Heartland Transmission Line, it has long been apparent that the provincial government and the power companies had decided exactly what was going to happen before we (the funders and those affected by this line) ever had a say. Our money was in fact being spent on an unneeded, unapproved, and un-reviewed line a long time ago. This demonstrates how complete the degeneration of our institutions of democratic consultation has been under this government. A change of leadership in this province is badly needed.

You can read the full story in the Herald here: http://www.calgaryherald.com/200M+already+spent+proposed+transmission+lines+under+review/6006888/story.html

Fact #1: The double-circuit 500kV Heartland power line was to have brought coal-fired electricity to at least 9 bitumen upgraders in the Industrial Heartland that the Alberta Government had been promoting for many years as the new economic driver in the oil sands energy sector.

Fact #2: Because of a shift away from doing upgrading in Alberta, only one bitumen upgrader is now being considered for the Industrial Heartland. Therefore, there is no need for the Heartland power line. And besides, any upgraders that might actually get built in the Industrial Heartland will co-generate their own cleaner electricity and therefore won’t require less-clean coal-fired power via the Heartland line.

On the one hand, we have Premier Alison Redford who suggests that exporting unrefined bitumen out of Alberta to the United States and China (via B.C.) through pipelines such as the Northern Gateway Pipeline and Keystone XL Pipeline is good for Alberta’s and Canada’s economies. In fact, she is working hard to convince all of the other Premiers that this is so, in an attempt to develop a national energy strategy.

On the other hand, we have people like former Premier Peter Lougheed who believe more unrefined bitumen should be processed in Alberta and Canada to create more local employment. Or putting it another way, by processing bitumen in Alberta, many more high-paying local jobs would be created over the long term than very short-term jobs created building pipelines to export the longer-term jobs out of Canada. It’s a principle central to almost all industries – the more secondary and tertiary development of raw materials, the more diversified and sustainable the economy. Alberta can continue to be a supplier of raw bitumen to other countries who then process this raw resource while creating thousands of jobs for their respective citizens. Or, Alberta can begin to refine bitumen at home like we do with agricultural and forestry products to create a more balanced, diversified and sustainable economy. We’ll need some pipeline capacity either way, but we need to think carefully about what we use those pipelines for.

There are many arguments for and against the Northern Gateway and Keystone XL pipelines, but one thing is certain. The more Premier Redford ignores the importance of upgrading in Alberta, the more absurd her support for the Heartland power line becomes. She cannot have it both ways – either we encourage upgrading in Alberta or we don’t. Regardless of what side of the pipeline debate you are on, the inconsistent approach taken by the government underlines the fact that the Heartland Transmission Project is not needed.

You can read the full story here (http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/snc-lavalin-developed-close-relationship-with-gadhafi-son-documents/article2302566/page1/). It appears that SNC-Lavalin worked with the Libyan government to develop a joint civilian-military engineering unit and to build a massive prison to house those Libyans who were unwilling to submit to the repeated denial of their basic freedoms. Here are a few highlights (or rather, low-lights) from the story:

-“Documents obtained by The Globe and Mail in Libya reveal that SNC met repeatedly with the North African leader’s notorious third son, Saadi Gadhafi, the two sides discussing a venture that would create a new board and also a logo that would fuse the green of the Libyan flag with the blue of SNC.”

-“For almost three years, from 2008 to 2010, Canada’s leading engineering company played a role developing the Libyan Corps of Engineers, a military and civilian unit that fell under Mr. Gadhafi’s personal supervision. In their discussions with Mr. Gadhafi, the Canadian firm described its services as a defence contractor, documents show, touting the experience of former military officers such as Vice-Admiral Ron Buck, former head of Canada’s navy.”

-“ “The Corps of Engineers must enter all scientific fields, because it’s an important weapon, and such units are considered in other countries of the world as an advanced weapon,” he (Gadhafi’s son Saadi) said, according to a four-page summary of the meeting. Building such an asset would require “the help of the Lavalin company,” he added.”

-“In a Nov. 4, 2008, proposal, Riadh Ben Aissa, an executive vice-president for SNC-Lavalin Group who has been responsible for ventures in countries such as Algeria, Tunisia and Venezuela, wrote a cover letter addressed to Saadi. The first sentence promises “state-of-the-art realization of major projects both of a military and civilian nature in Libya,” and the rest of the document continually emphasizes SNC’s role as a defence contractor: 37 of the 41 pages in the proposal contain the word “military,” as SNC touted its work on a long list of sensitive projects.”

For a company that has supported the military efforts of one of the most murderous governments ever (and one that recently fought a war with Canada), compromising the health of a few Albertans and forcing a school to close probably doesn’t seem like a big deal. Model citizen indeed!

This letter, sent January 13 to the AUC and cc’ed to all provincial MLAs and Strathcona County Councillors, reiterates the parents’ association concerns that an above-ground Heartland line so close to Colchester School (as approved by the AUC) will close down their school because parents will not jeopardize their children’s health and safety. Hundreds of peer-reviewed health studies report increased risks of cancers, tumors, immune system deficiencies, nervous system disorders, and many other ailments due to prolonged exposure to overhead high voltage power line EMFs and toxic corona clouds. Students and staff would be exposed from 6-8 hours a day, 5 days a week, to harmful EMFs and the corona effect from an overhead line.

Once the overhead power line has forced the closure of Colchester School, it will cost a minimum of $20 million to either build a new school or to expand an existing school over 10km away. Taxpayers – not AltaLink or EPCOR – will have to pay this cost, which in fact should be charged to the cost of building an overhead Heartland line.

The parents’ letter continues that “The AUC did not take into consideration the issues raised by parents such as health concerns, stress, safety risks, financial concerns, and loss of community amenities such as Colchester Elementary School.” They ask the AUC to reconsider its decision and bury the power line near the school “so we can keep our children together as one family”. Underground high voltage lines eliminate all of the negative impacts of overhead lines.

Parents conclude by indicating that AltaLink’s and EPCOR’s latest suggestion of an alternate route by the school gets the line only an additional 10m away and “does nothing to alleviate our concerns”.

Unfortunately, local P.C. MLAs Dave Quest and Iris Evans have not done much to help save the school.

During the leadership race, Morton conceded that the government arm which called for building these lines has a bias towards over-building the transmission grid. He said at the time “There’s no question the mandate of the Alberta Electric System Operator tends to give it a bias toward over-building.”

Morton also claimed to be against Bill 50, the legislation which by-passes the normal needs-assessment process for certain transmission infrastructure. As many others have pointed out, it makes much more economic and environmental sense to build power plants closer to the areas where electricity might be needed. (In the case of the Heartland Transmission Line, industrial consumers of electricity wanted a natural gas-fired power plant put directly in the Heartland area – this would be much cheaper than building the Heartland Line). Morton said: “I cannot support bill 50…bill 50 risks massively overbuilding the grid and you are the ones who will have to pay for it. This is at a time when natural gas is clean and cheap. Bill 50 ignores the opportunity to build gas-fired power plants close to the cities. ”

Ted Morton was right then, and it’s high time that he had the courage to stand up for his convictions.

Shannon Stubbs (Wildrose candidate in Fort Saskatchewan) spoke at our rally at the legislature a few months ago. About this appeal, she said:

“I strongly support this appeal. I spoke at the RETA rally at the legislature on behalf of Wildrose, and have always found there to be a real synergy between what RETA is saying and what the Wildrose Party believes. Both want the repeal of Bill 50. Both believe that above ground lines shouldn’t run near homes, schools, or daycare centers. Without RETA’s great work, it would have been very difficult to bring these issues to light in the way that we have been able to in the legislature. This appeal of the AUC decision is part of a great continuing effort on the part of RETA to oppose the misguiding agenda of this government on transmission lines.”

RETA’s Executive Director and Sherwood Park candidate Garnett Genuis is of course also a strong supporter of RETA’s appeal.

Garnett has extensive experience in politics and public advocacy. He has held a number of different positions on Parliament Hill, including one in the Prime Minister’s Office. He has also just completed a Masters Degree at the London School of Economics.

We at RETA are preparing to step up our efforts in the weeks ahead to defeat the Heartland Transmission Project once and for all. Garnett will play a key role in those efforts.

Numerous pipelines with highly flammable contents and subject to significant explosion risks within 30m of an overhead Heartland line, are located close to the school as well. Many interveners at the AUC Heartland hearing last Spring pointed out these health and pipeline risks; unfortunately AltaLink, EPCOR and the AUC chose to ignore them.

The Heartland line is not needed, as pointed out by industrial consumer groups, Alberta landowner groups, Strathcona County Council, Edmonton City Council, Sturgeon County Council, Alberta Industrial Heartland Association, RETA, many other stakeholders, and even AltaLink’s and EPCOR’s own data which show the line will be energized to only 15% of its capacity.

However, if the Alberta Government insists on this line getting built, it must be buried when it runs near schools, homes and hospitals.

Our calculations indicate that moving the line to the new location will only increase the distance between the line and Colchester school by about 10 meters. (The map sent out to those impacted is full of errors.) This minimal increase in distance will not allay the concerns of parents.

This new proposed route is longer, contains more towers, and runs closer to many homes and sensitive environmental areas such as the Bretona Pond. Because of the increase in length, it will also cost more.

We agree with the apparent tacit admission by those involved that the previous route was unacceptable. However, Albertans will not be fooled by an adjustment, occurring after hearings have been completed, which does not address the underlying problems. Given this admission, the AUC should demand that the lines be buried, and the government should do the right thing and pass legislation requiring that transmission lines near sensitive and populated areas be buried.

Meetings to hear from stakeholders selected by the Alberta Government and the CTRC will take place in Calgary January 10-12 at the Radisson Hotel Calgary Airport; and in Edmonton January 18-20 at the Ramada Conference Centre {see CBC (1), CBC (2), Calgary Herald (1), Calgary Herald (2), CBC (3), Calgary Herald (3) and Calgary Herald (4) for coverage of presentations to the CRTC}.

This Committee was established because of the controversy surrounding the proposed construction of the Western Alberta Transmission Line by AltaLink from Gibbons to Brooks and the Eastern Alberta Transmission Line by ATCO Electric from Genesee to Langdon. Many Albertans, landowner groups, industry associations and other stakeholders have argued that these two lines are not needed, are significant overbuilds, and/or should not be funded by Alberta electricity consumers because they will be used primarily for the export of electricity to the U.S. (as reported by WikiLeaks).

On October 21, 2011, Energy Minister Ted Morton and the Alberta Utilities Commission (AUC) indicated publicly that 3 lines would be reviewed: Western Alberta Transmission Line, Eastern Alberta Transmission Line and Heartland Transmission Project. A few short hours later, Premier Redford indicated she was surprised by Morton’s letter, stated there had been miscommunication within the government, and quickly overturned Morton’s and the AUC’s announcement by indicating that the Heartland line would not be reviewed but rather should be built. Coverage of this flip-flop by the government is included in several RETA blogs, including this one.

This latest review by the CTRC is yet another example of the Alberta Government’s gross mishandling of the entire electricity file. The Heartland line, approved by the AUC November 1, 2011 was to connect the Western Alberta and Eastern Alberta Transmission Lines. Unless both of these lines are built, the Heartland line makes no sense whatsoever. Even if both of the north-south lines were built, the Heartland line still makes no sense because there is only one rather than 9 tar sands upgraders being built in the Industrial Heartland, and any others that might get built in the future would efficiently co-generate their own power thereby precluding the need for dirty coal-fired power from Wabamun via the Heartland line.

Gingrich’s support for undergrounding has important implications for people on both sides of the border. In the United States, it may give Gingrich the boost he needs to beat fellow Republican Mitt Romney in the upcoming New Hampshire primary. Romney is highly favoured in New Hampshire, so an upset there could turn the primary campaign around and make Gingrich the front-runner again. If Gingrich wins the Republican nomination, he will have the opportunity to bring much more attention to the issue of electricity transmission and the opportunities associated with undergrounding.

In Canada, this means that electricity companies who want to export power to the United States will have to start taking undergrounding seriously instead of dismissing it out of hand. A major underground power project between Quebec and New Hampshire would bolster the case of groups like ours who are showing that putting lines underground is a safe and effective alternative to massive overhead towers.

Whether or not you like Gingrich, it is exciting to have such a prominent political leader talking about this important issue. Gingrich is a conservative Republican. Those who review the facts, on the right or on the left, generally agree that generating power closer to the source and burying transmission lines when they are needed is the sensible thing to do. Hopefully some Alberta politicians will be prepared to follow Gingrich’s lead.

The Washington Times reports Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich has pledged that, if elected president, he would not support a Canadian-U.S. hydroelectric project unless the transmission lines go underground.

On January 5, Gingrich said, “The application that I would be willing to consider as president would have to require burials, and it would have to require that the Northern Pass project be an underground project.” He went on to promise that he would insist on a plan that provides for “no visual damage to the natural beauty of northern New Hampshire.”

The proposed Northern Pass high voltage transmission project is extremely controversial, and has upset thousands of residents along its proposed route from Quebec to New Hampshire and other New England states. The joint proposal by the Public Service of New Hampshire, Hydro-Quebec and Northeast Utilities would include 180 miles of high voltage lines from towers as high as 130 feet, and would cost about $1.2 billion. (By comparison, AltaLink and EPCOR are proposing towers up to 253 feet tall for the Heartland Transmission Project.)

Canadian and American residents along the Northern Pass line are concerned about health, property value and visual impacts as well as lost tourism revenue. The line is estimated to reduce the value of land in the immediate area of the line by more than $1 million per lineal mile of line.

No wonder this issue has reached the level of presidential candidates in the U.S., and at least one candidate for the Republicans has now said the line must be buried. Unfortunately, here in Alberta, provincial Progressive Conservative politicians have turned a blind eye to the growing concerns about overhead high voltage power lines in our province, regardless of how many facts are presented to them.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/story/2011/12/31/calgary-heartland-transmission-line-power.html

Articles in the last couple days in the St. Albert Gazette and Sherwood Park News have also brought greater attention to our appeal, and emphasized that RETA is one of many groups of concerned citizens that is actively opposing this transmission line overbuild. Those two stories are accessible at:

http://www.stalbertgazette.com/article/20120104/SAG0801/301049988/-1/sag0801/advocacy-group-seeks-reversal-of-power-line-decision

and

http://www.sherwoodparknews.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=3426740

Details about the appeal are available in an earlier post – http://retasite.wordpress.com/2011/12/30/reta-files-appeal-of-auc-decision-on-heartland-transmission-project/

For more details on this story: http://www.globallethbridge.com/southern+alberta+fires+evacuate+homes+close+highway/6442553083/story.html

http://www.abc.net.au/local/stories/2011/12/30/3400006.htm

As we look back on the year that was, and think about the year ahead, there are 3 important things we need to recognize.

1. The legal route is important, but it is not enough!

We’ve worked very hard to stop the AUC from allowing the government’s planned overhead power line overbuild to go ahead. Our lawyers, witnesses, experts, board members and volunteers have worked countless hours, and we will continue to work on appeals. These appeals may succeed in delaying the construction of these lines, and may even succeed in bringing changes to the current application. However, until the government re-introduces an independent needs-assessment process for power lines and until clear direction comes from the government about the importance of protecting homes, schools, and daycare centers from EMFs, we will continue to have the Heartland Transmission Project hanging over our heads.

2. The Alberta PCs are not our friends!

Last year, we worked very hard to engage PC MLAs and members of the government. This was the right thing to do – we gave the government the benefit of the doubt and tried to work within the governing party to address this issue. However, Alison Redford has continued with the misguided Stelmach policy of pushing through the Heartland Transmission Project and local PC MLAs, while pretending to object in public, have failed to act to stop the project from going ahead. Often times, we’ve found that PC politicians say one thing in public, while working behind the scenes to push overhead power lines ahead as quickly as possible. The strategy of working within government has completely run its course – now it’s time to work to defeat the government.

3. Alberta is still a democracy, and we still have the power!

There is no place for pessimism in democratic politics, because we always have the power to bring about change. In the year ahead, we need to exercise our power. We need to use our resources, our time, our social networks, and our votes to defeat PC politicians and replace them with people who will repeal Bill 50 (the enabling legislation which allows the government to build the Heartland Transmission Project) and with people who will support putting power lines underground in those cases where they are needed. We need to encourage our friends and neighbours to stop voting based on their habits, and to start voting based on their values and their interests.

The election is still a few months away. Now is the time to start reading about party policies and contacting local candidates. Democracy means that you have the power. Soon you will have an opportunity to exercise that power.

1. The AUC accepted a chart which was presented by AltaLink which, in RETA’s view, completely misrepresents the levels of Electromagnetic Fields (EMF) which would be experienced by area residents. The estimates measured only one frequency, and ignored the findings of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers that:

“Since most electronic equipment is located at a low voltage level of its associated power distribution system, it is frequently exposed to the effects of voltage notching.  Voltage notches frequently introduce frequencies, both harmonic and nonharmonic, that are much higher than normally exhibited in 5 kV and higher voltage distribution systems.  These frequencies can be in the radio frequency (RF) range, and, as such, can introduce harmful effects associated with spurious RF.”

In other words, the chart used by the AUC to consider EMF levels in the surrounding area significantly underestimated resulting EMF levels.

2. The AUC quickly and arbitrarily dismissed the underground option as ‘high risk’. However, undergrounding is becoming increasingly common throughout the world, and even the power companies involved agreed that undergrounding was feasible.

3. When considering the impact on the public of this project, the AUC didn’t consider the fact that Colchester Elementary School will now have to close and move to a different location. It doesn’t make sense to have the public pay to relocate the school, when putting the line underground would completely eliminate the need to relocate the school. As noted in the appeal, “If the cost analysis between overhead and underground lines included the costs to accommodate the students of Colchester School, this could lead the AUC to materially vary or rescind the Decision.”

We hope that the AUC will reconsider their decision in light of the errors it contained. A variety of other stakeholders have appealed or announced their intention to appeal the AUC’s decision, including Strathcona County and the Alberta Landowners Council.

See news coverage at Sherwood Park News, St. Albert Gazette and CBC News.

The parents’ association indicated in the letter that Colchester Elementary School would have to close down if the Heartland line is built above ground because parents would not want to jeopardize their children’s health and safety so close to the line. It would cost a minimum of $20 million to build a new school, if Colchester School was closed down.

The parents clearly stated that, if the line had to be built next to the school, it must be buried.

Recognizing the benefits of undergrounding, FEMA provides funding through their Hazard Mitigation Grant program which communities can use to bury power lines. One community that took advantage of this was the city of Bardstown, Kentucky. In one particularly densely wooded subdivision, storms would frequently knocked trees onto power lines. This frequently left residents in the dark, and forced the city to pay for regular repairs. In frustration, they decided to bury the lines. Through a Hazard Mitigation Grant, FEMA paid to have the lines put under ground.

In 2008 a disastrous ice storm struck Kentucky, knocking down forests and destroying power lines throughout the state. However, in this otherwise-vulnerable section of Bardstown, the lights stayed on and nobody had to pay for repairs.

People in other states across the US are calling for undergrounding – every time inclement weather causes line damage and a power outage, these debates are re-ignited. Avoiding potential damage from winter weather is a good reason to put lines underground from the beginning, rather than crossing your fingers and hoping nothing happens. In Kentucky, they realized that burying the line was a better option, even though the lines had already been built above ground. How much better it would have been to put the line underground in the first place.

Of course, it’s different in Alberta, because these lines aren’t supplying electricity to anyone who needs it. We’re building lines to nowhere. The best thing to do would be to cancel the whole project. But, if the government is intent on building these useless transmission lines, then they ought to at least build them in the most responsible way possible.

1. Susan Timanson is the most recent candidate to announce her candidacy. She is not from the Sherwood Park riding. As far as we can find, she’s made absolutely no public comments on the power line issue.

2. Cathy Olesen is a past Mayor of Strathcona County. She was handily defeated by current Mayor Linda Osinchuk in the last municipal election – many residents felt at the time that we needed a stronger advocate for the area instead of someone intent on being a ‘team player’. (For coverage of her defeat, check out this video link: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/story/2010/10/19/edmonton-olesen-mayor-strathcona-county.html). She also lives outside of the Sherwood Park riding. We hope for a Sherwood Park MLA willing to stand up and fight for residents. Like Susan, Cathy has been publicly silent on the power line issue since announcing her intention to seek the nomination.

3. Brian Botterill is a young first term Councillor who lives with his parents in the Sherwood Park riding. He does have a greater connection to this riding than Susan or Cathy. However, like Susan and Cathy, he has stayed completely away from the power line issue since announcing his candidacy.

4. Matthew Bissett may be the best of the four. He does live in the riding. His website does have a dedicated “power lines” section where he discusses the issue (http://www.bissettforpcmla.ca/powerlines/). Bissett’s post implies that he is opposed to this power line overbuild. However, he also shows a poor understanding of the process and he links to the AUC and AltaLink/EPCOR sites without providing any information from the other side.

Unfortunately, it seems that none of these four candidates are willing to stand up for residents on this vital issue. We hope to be proven wrong on this point. Sherwood Park needs an MLA who will consistently fight for an end to the power line overbuild that this government wants to impose on Albertans. We need an MLA who will stand up to Alison Redford and refuse to vote confidence in a government which is set on this misguided course.

At this stage, it probably makes sense to stay out of this ‘say-nothing’ nomination and hope that Albertans elect a new government when that time comes around. We’ve tried in the past to change the PC Party from within, but it just hasn’t worked.

Last week, the County of Strathcona filed applications with the AUC for a Review and Variance of its decision and Suspension of the decision until their appeal is heard. Strathcona is submitting that there were numerous errors of fact and law that raise a substantial doubt as to the correctness of the Commission’s decision. They submit that the AUC misapprehended the evidence on the merits of the underground option, erred in its determination of what is in the public interest, and erred in its considerations of the Sherwood Park and Edmonton Greenbelt as an appropriate route for the line. The County has also submitted new facts that were not available to the AUC prior to its decision.

Yesterday, rural Sturgeon County landowners filed a legal challenge in the Alberta Court of Appeal on two grounds: the commission erred in law by not conducting a comprehensive cost-benefit analysis of the line, and Premier Redford interfered politically and influenced the decision by the quasi-judicial commission.

RETA has announced that it will also be filing appeals of the AUC decision.

Last week the Alberta Association of Municipal Districts and Counties (AAMDC) passed a resolution requesting the provincial government to put all projects they consider “critical” (including the Heartland line) on hold until a comprehensive cost-benefit review is completed.

Karen Shaw, a Sturgeon County Councillor,  said the building of all these high voltage power lines that aren’t needed is “going to cripple the economy and it’s going to be bad for all Albertans”. Sturgeon County Mayor Don Rigney said because the Heartland line is supposed to link the East and West Alberta lines, and those two lines have been put on hold, it makes no sense for the Heartland line to proceed. “There’s enough power in the Heartland area for one to two upgraders”, Rigney said, adding that only one is being built. “They’re building a system for market conditions that no longer exist.”

(As well, any tar sands upgraders that actually might get built in the Heartland area will be co-generating their own power, so do not need dirty coal-fired electricity from Wabamun which the Heartland line is meant to transmit.)

The letter also supports the Alberta Association of Municipal Districts and Counties’ recent request of the Alberta Government to put all critical transmission projects on hold until a comprehensive cost benefit review is completed.

The filed papers indicate the AUC was unduly influenced by Premier Redford when she publicly said she wanted the Heartland line built, and overturned her Energy Minister’s earlier request that the AUC suspend its consideration of the Heartland line.

An affidavit filed by one of the landowners negatively affected by the AUC decision points to the interaction between the Premier and the so-called independent AUC, charging political interference with the quasi-judicial commission.

The Heartland Transmission Project is one of the largest overhead 500kV high voltage power lines ever to be built in Alberta. Opponents to the overhead line say the AUC decision will result in over 15,000 residents being directly and adversely affected, at least one school will close down, many businesses will be negatively affected, and many environmentally sensitive areas will be impacted.

Literally hundreds of studies show that above-ground high voltage power lines have serious negative impacts on health, safety, property values, the environment, and overall quality of life. Much of this evidence was filed during the AUC hearing in April and May, 2011. Burying the line would eliminate the negative impacts of an overhead line, but unfortunately the AUC ruled it is not in the public interest to do so, in spite of the overwhelming evidence. See Sherwood Park Independent Weekly article.

AUC Heartland Power Line Decision to be Appealed

(Sherwood Park) November 28, 2011. The decision released November 1, 2011 by the Alberta Utilities Commission (AUC) on the proposed Heartland Transmission Project reflects a colossal failure on the part of the Alberta Government and Alberta Electric System Operator (AESO) to plan, manage and regulate electricity transmission in Alberta.

RETA will be filing requests to have the AUC decision reviewed. These appeal requests will be made directly to the AUC, and most probably to the Alberta Court of Appeal.

“Now that we have had an opportunity to read the full AUC decision, we are extremely disappointed,” said Bruce Johnson, President of RETA. “The decision to not bury the transmission line was based on the AUC’s perspective that it is not in the public interest.  It is curious how spending nearly $600 million on a line that has no identifiable need is in the public interest but then doing it in a way that doesn’t see thousands of homeowners lose as much as 40% of the value of their homes is not in the public interest.

“And furthermore, the decision was based on phantom costs conjured up by AltaLink and EPCOR rather than on the real costs that would have come out of a competitive bidding process,” continued Johnson. “Basing this decision on a number fabricated by a company that has never built 500kV underground transmission lines before, and whose Montreal-based parent SNC-Lavalin stands to gain substantially from building the towers if the line doesn’t go underground, is frankly a farce.”

The decision by the AUC is the culmination in a series of mistakes and biases by the Alberta Government, AESO, AltaLink and EPCOR.

The first mistake and bias was the AESO’s 2008 electricity transmission plan for the province, where they dubiously portrayed the need for the Heartland line by suggesting that nine bitumen upgraders to be built in the Industrial Heartland needed electricity from coal-fired generation at Wabamun. There is now only one upgrader being built because oilsands companies have found it more economical to ship raw bitumen from Fort McMurray to the United States by pipeline. The real irony is, any upgraders that might actually get built in the Heartland region will co-generate their own electricity and therefore will not need the coal-fired electricity from Wabamun that the Heartland line will transmit.

The Alberta Government has passed numerous new laws and amended numerous existing laws to streamline the process of building new electricity transmission infrastructure at the expense of public consultation, landowners’ rights and environmental oversight.

In 2008, the Alberta Government exempted all new high voltage power lines from requiring formal environmental impact assessments. New high voltage lines now require no scrutiny of potential environmental and health impacts by Alberta Environment and Alberta Health and Wellness.

Inspite of province-wide protests by landowners, the Alberta Government then passed Bill 19, the Land Assembly Project Area Act, in early 2009, which makes it much easier for the government to designate private land for high voltage power lines and in fact sterilize private land for this purpose.

Also in spite of province-wide opposition, the Alberta Government passed Bill 50, the Electric Statutes Amendment Act, 2009, which removed any public, industry and AUC role in reviewing the need for new high voltage power lines. The Alberta Cabinet now decides unilaterally and at its sole discretion, which new lines are needed and approximately where they will be built, leaving only the fine-tuning of precise routing to the AUC. In fact, it appears as if Premier Redford can make this decision all by herself as she illustrated a number of weeks ago when she overturned a decision to review the Heartland line by her Energy Minister.

The MLAs within whose constituencies the Heartland line will be built have let their constituents down by not actively representing the concerns of their residents who will be directly and adversely impacted whether that be health, safety, property values or local environment. These MLAs are Naresh Bhardwaj, Iris Evans, Jeff Johnson, David Quest, Peter Sandhu, Tony Vandermeer and Gene Zwozdesky.

The Alberta Department of Energy and the AESO have been biased from the outset regarding the Heartland line, and have worked closely with the transmission industry, rather than concerning themselves with any input or concerns from the Alberta public, industry and business community. In fact, during the AUC Heartland line hearing, many examples were provided of just how closely the government, AESO and power companies work together, often making it impossible to determine who is actually calling the shots.

AltaLink and EPCOR have been extremely biased from the outset of their public consultation process. They sent out incorrect routing information to residents, did not interview many homeowners who will be directly and adversely impacted, critical information was withheld from landowners, treated rural and urban homeowners differently, intimidated landowners, and changed their power line routing and tower height proposals many times during the public consultation process, during the hearing, and even following the hearing. It got to the point where homeowners did not know where the actual line was being proposed or whether the towers would be 60 metres high or 77 metres high; or whether they would be lattice towers or monopole towers.

The most consistent complaint by interveners throughout the AUC hearing was how poorly the applicants had conducted their public consultation process. One intervener summarized this fact well by stating that the applicants had not been “consulting”, rather they had been “insulting”; and their public consultation process had been a “giant farce”.

As well, the applicants’ expert testimony at the AUC hearing was provided by visual impact, health, property value and other consultants hired by AltaLink and EPCOR, and who are in the business of testifying for transmission companies on a regular basis for very handsome hourly fees. Cross examination of many of these experts by interveners revealed just how biased their testimony was.

Interveners expected the AUC to weigh all of the evidence fairly within the context of developing a decision that was in the best public interest, as they are mandated by law to do. However, the primary interest that appears to have been addressed and satisfied in this decision is that of AltaLink and EPCOR, at the expense of the true “public interest”.

The close to 5,200 homes (over 15,000 residents), several schools and daycares, a hospital, and many businesses that will be directly and adversely impacted by the Heartland line and the AUC’s decision will be hit with a double whammy – they will have to pay 100% of the cost of this line along with other Albertans, plus they will have to suffer the negative health, safety, property value and overall quality of life impacts of the overhead line.

Johnson continued, “The Heartland line will be the largest power line project ever built in Alberta and will have negative impacts on thousands of nearby residents, businesses and schools of such significant magnitude not ever experienced before in our province. These towers will be twice as high as any others in Alberta– 253 feet tall – which is about the height of the EPCOR Building in downtown Edmonton. We presented evidence at the hearing to show that the capital cost of a partially buried Heartland line could be as little as 15% more than an entirely above-ground line and that when capital, maintenance and transmission loss costs are combined over the life of the line, a buried line might actually be cheaper than an overhead line. This information has been ignored.”

“The decision to build the Heartland line above ground reflects badly on Alberta. We have been betrayed by the Alberta Government, AESO, AltaLink and EPCOR. We must appeal the AUC decision”, concluded Johnson.

RETA is a non-profit society with about 9,000 members that encourages responsible electricity transmission in Alberta. Responsible transmission includes determining whether specific new high voltage power lines are necessary, and if they are truly shown to be necessary, burying them whenever they run close to homes, schools, daycares, hospitals and environmentally sensitive areas. And, if new lines are not buried in these situations, then those who are directly and adversely impacted must be fairly compensated on the basis of replacement value (not market value which is reduced as soon as a high voltage line is proposed in the community).

For more information, see April 12 – July 11, 2011 blogs at www.RETA.ca or contact:

Bruce Johnson, President, RETA: 780-902-9511 (cell)

John Kristensen, VP Technical, RETA: 780-467-1432 (home); 780-722-9866 (cell)

And the good news is, Alberta consumers get to pay 100% of the costs of any new transmission infrastructure, whether it’s needed or not.

In a strange line of reasoning, Redford described Bill 50 as an “unfortunate piece of legislation. It was too bad we had to introduce it.” Now there’s a resounding endorsement for the bill.

Premier Redford and her spokesman disagreed on November 25 about when a panel would be announced to review Alberta’s electricity needs. It appears the Premier has already determined that all of the new high voltage power lines dubiously labeled as “critical transmission infrastructure” in Bill 50 are necessary and leads one to wonder, “Why bother with the review panel?”

Just when you think the Alberta Government can’t possibly make any more glaring mistakes regarding electricity generation and transmission…..they do.

AltaLink and EPCOR had provided outlandish estimates of undergrounding costs to the AUC, in an attempt to suggest that it was just too expensive to even consider this technology. Estimates provided as evidence to the AUC Heartland hearing by credible experts pegged the costs to bury a 20-kilometre section of the Heartland line at only 15% more than building it overhead.

Undergrounding high voltage power lines is now a totally acceptable technology being used world-wide in countries where industry and governments care about health, safety, aesthetic and property value impacts of overhead high voltage lines. In fact, even an AESO-sponsored undergrounding study clearly shows that burying the Heartland line is technically feasible, financially feasible and reliable. Unfortunately, the AESO (Alberta Electric System Operator), AUC, Alberta Government, AltaLink and EPCOR have ignored this report.

CTV

Mayor Osinchuk raised the matter directly with the Alberta Energy Minister at the Alberta Association of Municipal Districts and Counties annual convention, renewing her call for the Alberta Government to review electricity needs and costs in Alberta. This comes one day after Mayor Osinchuk sent letters to all MLAs indicating the County’s plans to appeal the controversial AUC Heartland decision. See iNews880 coverage.

Energy Minister Ted Morton had sent a letter to the AUC in October requesting that consideration of the proposed Heartland, Eastern Alberta and Western Alberta transmission lines be suspended until the government could review its approach to these lines. However, a few hours later, Premier Redford overturned this request by interfering with the AUC’s quasi-judicial process, instructing the AUC to go ahead with the Heartland line, but continue to suspend consideration of the Eastern Alberta and Western Alberta lines.

Many, including RETA, have criticized this decision by the Premier because without the Eastern and Western Alberta lines, the Heartland line makes no sense whatsoever.

The township also issued a resolution in relation to high voltage lines, referencing the township’s authority to provide for the public health, safety and welfare of township residents and property. The amendment and resolution are deemed necessary to preserve the township’s rural character, ease strain on roads, enhance traffic safety, maintain the township’s aesthetics, comply with the master land use plan, protect and enhance operation of utilities, enhance residents’ safety, and protect residential dwellings and businesses.

The amendment and resolution follow resident protests over a new 7-mile-long overhead high voltage power line planned through the township by ITC Holdings Inc. See mlive.com coverage.

Well…..recently, the Hope for the Hills campaign has scored a major victory, together with support from local and federal elected representatives. On November 10,  the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) ordered SCE to stop construction work on the monopole towers in Chino Hills. The CPUC also ordered SCE to prepare alternatives to replace the previously-approved design and route through Chino Hills, including details on the feasibility, cost and timing for each alternative.

Although their battle is not over, this most recent CPUC ruling is most certainly a helpful start to Chino Hills residents’ campaign to get this massive line moved or buried. Residents have been fighting this line since 2007 on the basis of health, safety, visual and property devaluation impacts of such a huge project so close to so many homes. To make things worse, the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) guidelines prohibit borrowers from qualifying for mortgages and refinancing their homes with FHA loans to residential properties that are located within the Fall Zone of high voltage transmission lines such as those built by SCE. This ruling by the CPUC is particularly meaningful, considering that 15 of the SCE monopole towers have already been built and erected in Chino Hills.

See the following media reports for details: Cal Watchdog, ChinoHills.com (1), Renew Grid, ChinoHills.com (2) and Contra Costa Times.

RETA congratulates the continuing efforts and recent victory of the Hope For The Hills campaign. This is a shining example of the success possible when a community works hard and has a strong commitment to fighting for what is right. Overhead high voltage power lines simply do not belong close to homes, schools and daycare centres.

Scientists have shown in a large comparative study that even very high voltage power lines can easily be buried. Until recently, it was primarily low- or medium-voltage lines that were buried. Although the capital cost of burying the lines is somewhat higher than construction above ground, the undergrounding costs are sinking rapidly according to German experts due to new technologies and the growing demand for burial. Experts say the placing of lines underground “only has a marginal effect” on costs passed on to consumers. This is particularly the case because long-term maintenance and transmission loss costs are much lower for buried lines.

This marked increase in burying very high-voltage power lines is a result of residents and communities taking energy companies to court because of the negative health effects from overhead lines, and residents don’t want to see the countryside spoiled or the natural environmental negatively affected. For example, the Swiss federal court recently ruled that the energy company Axpo would have to bury its high voltage power lines in the village of Riniken.

Why are other governments around the world responding to their citizens’ concerns about overhead high voltage power lines, but here in Alberta, the provincial government and electricity regulators (AUC) continue to ignore all the facts surrounding negative impacts of overhead high voltage lines?

This is in follow up to the ludicrous November 1 decision by the Alberta Utilities Commission (AUC) that it is “in the public interest” to build the most massive overhead high voltage power lines ever seen in Alberta (77 metres tall – 253 feet) next to 5,194 homes, several schools, a hospital, many businesses, and many environmentally sensitive areas.

This Lacombe Globe article questions why the Heartland project was not suspended, as were the Eastern and Western Alberta transmission lines. Based on these types of bewildering decisions by the Alberta Government (including Premier Redford directly), the article goes on to suggest that “there are others eager and more than willing to take her place”, if she continues to falter. Others eager to replace her obviously include the Opposition parties, but also folks within the Alberta Progressive Conservative Party who did not vote for her.

There will undoubtedly be many more articles and letters to newspaper editors written on the Heartland Transmission Project fiasco.

To be a bit more precise, the AUC’s decision will directly and adversely affect 5,194 homes (over 15,000 people) in Edmonton, Sherwood Park, rural Strathcona County and Sturgeon County. For those of you keeping track, that’s 4,852 more homes than would have been impacted along the applicants’ alternate route, but if you can believe it, the AUC’s decision says fewer people are impacted along the Greenbelts (the route selected by the AUC). Will somebody please give the AUC a math lesson? (We point this out because of the AUC’s erroneous math – not because we would have supported an above-ground line close to any of the 342 homes along the alternate route.)

In the future, we will be providing much more information on the AUC’s decision so that you may judge for yourselves just exactly what “public interest” has been served by this ludicrous decision. But for now, we thought you might be interested in some of the hundreds of responses to date from Albertans, as reported by the media. Here’s a short list of some of the more common themes to these responses:

1. The AUC completely ignored the facts on health, safety, property value, environmental and aesthetic impacts presented by interveners opposed to an overhead line, and instead relied on unsubstantiated information presented by the applicants, AltaLink and EPCOR.

2. The AUC agreed on the line being built above ground right next to Colchester Elementary School, which was built in 1958, long before any greenbelts were developed. This well-maintained school currently has an enrollment of close to 200, and will close down if the line is built above ground.

3. Education Minister Thomas Lukaszuk is wrong to suggest that Colchester students might be better served by attending school somewhere else.

4. Many institutions,  groups and individuals will fight the AUC and the Alberta Government on this decision because it is a bad decision, based on a very biased interpretation of the evidence presented to the AUC. This battle might include legal, political and other appropriate remedies and measures.

5. The real irony is, industry, industrial organizations, academics, responsible electricity use groups and most Albertans have made it clear the Heartland line is not even needed. Why is the P.C. Government and the AUC ramming this line down our throats? What kind of back-room deals have been made with AltaLink, SNC-Lavalin and EPCOR?

6. The money it will take to build a new school (to replace Colchester), to build monopole rather than lattice towers, and to compensate homeowners and businesses for devalued properties next to an overhead line would have been more than enough to bury the line.

7. The AUC’s decision is no surprise because the Alberta Government and the AESO made it clear years ago they wanted a new line built in the Edmonton and Sherwood Park Greenbelts, which were set aside in the 1970′s to protect agriculture and the natural environment.

8. The AUC and the P.C. Government care more about satisfying the big power industry than they do about the health, safety and financial security of Albertans and protection of our natural environment.

9. The AUC and Alberta Government are promoting the use of dirty coal-fired power generation (at Wabamun) over more environmentally-friendly generation such as natural gas-fired and co-generated electricity.

10. Both the provincial government and the AUC refuse to recognize the advances made in high voltage line undergrounding technologies, and the many benefits of burying these lines.

11. Many communities in Strathcona County, Sturgeon County and Edmonton will be destroyed as a result of this decision.

12. To what extent did Premier Redford’s interference with the quasi-judicial process and her personal support for the Heartland line influence the AUC’s decision?

13. Bill 50 and other P.C. Government legislation helped lay the groundwork for this poor decision.

14. The entire public consultation and hearing process for the Heartland line was a farce.

Here are a few responses to the decision by RETA, as recorded by the media: CBC, Edmonton Journal, St. Albert Gazette and Sherwood Park News.

Following are just some of the hundreds of responses to the AUC decision from other Albertans and institutions: CTV (1), Calgary Beacon, Edmonton Journal (1), Strathcona County News Release (1), Sherwood Park News (1), Elk Island Public Schools News Release, Calgary Herald (1), iNews 880 (1), Canadian Business, Edmonton Journal (2), Sherwood Park News (2), Calgary Herald (2), CTV (2), Fort Saskatchewan Record, CTV (3), Calgary Herald (3), iNews 880 (2), Edmonton Sun, Sherwood Park News (3), Strathcona County News Release (2), Edmonton Journal (3), Sherwood Park News (4), iNews 880 (3), CTV (4), Edmonton Journal (4), Sherwood Park News (5), Edmonton Journal (5), Sherwood Park News (6) and Sherwood Park News (7).

Elk Island Public Schools, Strathcona County Council, RETA and many others are supportive of getting the line buried so the school can stay open. The well-maintained school, built in 1958, would close if the power line is built above ground as decided by the AUC, because parents would not want to jeopardize the health and safety of their children. Many peer-reviewed studies indicate significant increased risks of childhood leukemia and many other diseases associated with nearby overhead high voltage power lines.

The President of the Colchester Parents Association, Cheryl Przybilla, has challenged the Alberta Government to put health and safety of children before big power industry.

RETA has now had an opportunity to review the many responses and hundreds of news articles plus electronic media coverage on the unbelievable flip flop by the Alberta Government regarding its approach to the Heartland power line. Following are some of the more common themes to responses from Albertans:

1. Premier Redford has seriously overstepped her authority both as Premier and a lawyer by ordering the AUC to continue its consideration of the Heartland line which she emphatically stated was critical. She has interfered with a quasi-judicial process which is similar to phoning a judge about a friend who received a drunk driving ticket in hopes of getting the charge dropped.

2. Albertans and all Opposition parties were shocked that the new Premier would interfere politically with a quasi-judicial process. It raises serious questions about the independence of the AUC.

3. How can the Premier give the go-ahead to the Heartland line which is supposed to connect the proposed Eastern Alberta and Western Alberta lines, when she agrees that the need for the Eastern and Western Alberta lines must be reviewed? The Heartland line makes no sense unless both the Eastern and Western Alberta lines are also built.

4. How can the Premier consider the Heartland line necessary when there has been no factual information whatsoever presented by the Alberta Electric System Operator (AESO), Alberta Government, AltaLink or EPCOR to show that the line is needed? In fact, all of the credible evidence by industry, academics and responsible electricity use associations indicates clearly that the line is not needed. If it is built, it will be a line to nowhere.

5. The Alberta Government Cabinet obviously does not have its act together when it comes to the electricity file, because first the Energy Minister told the AUC to suspend its consideration of the Heartland line, and then a few short hours later Premier Redford overturned that direction.

6. Bill 50, which legislated the building of the Heartland line, must be scrapped – not simply reviewed – but scrapped.

Following is a small sampling of the response by RETA, as reported by the media, to this incredulous flip flop by the P.C. Government: Energize Alberta, Edmonton Journal, St. Albert Gazette, and Journal of Commerce.

Here are just some of the responses reported by the media from other Albertans: Global TV (1), Edmonton Journal (1), CBC, Calgary Herald, iNews 880, Wildrose News Release, NDP News Release, Calgary Beacon, CTV (1), Canadian Business, Global TV (2), Edmonton Sun, Sherwood Park News (1), CTV (2), Edmonton Journal (2), Red Deer Advocate, Sherwood Park News (2), Edmonton Journal (3) and Edmonton Journal (4).

Colchester is one of the oldest schools in Strathcona County, and has been not only a school, but also a centre of community activities for many years. It has been well maintained, is in fine physical condition,  and has a reputation of offering students some of the most dedicated teachers and administration in the County.

About 200 students are currently enrolled in the school.

With the AUC’s decision that it is in the public interest that EPCOR and AltaLink build the double circuit 500 kilovolt power line above ground within the Sherwood Park Greenbelt and right next to Colchester School, the fate of the school hangs on a thread. Parents are understandably concerned about the health and safety of their children, based on hundreds of scientific and medical studies that clearly indicate increased risks of many serious diseases and other health problems associated with overhead high voltage line EMFs and corona effect.

Attend this most critical meeting to find out what is planned for our school:

Monday, November 14, 2011

7:00 p.m.

Colchester Elementary School

Stay tuned for media coverage of the AUC’s November 1 decision to grant approval for EPCOR and AltaLink to build the most massive overhead high voltage power line towers and lines ever seen in Alberta right through the Sherwood Park and Edmonton Greenbelts and next to Colchester School. Over 15,000 Edmonton, Sherwood Park, Strathcona County and Sturgeon County residents will be directly and adversely affected.

Also stay tuned for media coverage of the unbelievable flip flop by the Alberta Government in late October to first put a hold on the Heartland decision and then a few hours later to have that hold overturned by Premier Redford who mistakenly thinks the Heartland line is critical to Alberta’s economy.

The inevitable outcome… yes, it’s going ahead and it will be overhead.  Brilliant.  Couldn’t have predicted that one.

Many of you had suggested in the past the AUC Hearing was simply theatre with a predetermined outcome.  Well, I had hoped better, but apparently, no.

What a wonderful process it was.  Let me see… the Applicants (AltaLink and Epcor) had two years to build their case. We, the interveners, had about 5 weeks to hire our expert witnesses and put our arguments together.  Seems fair.

The applicants had limitless resources, which, if they were successful, would be paid for by you and I.  We had to pay for this out of our own pockets and hope the AUC might reimburse us if they so decided.  Seems fair.

We have day jobs we need to attend to not to mention the stress of trying to keep a grass-roots organization going.  They get to hire a team of people whose only objective is to discredit us and further the goals of a multi-million dollar corporation, based out of Quebec, that doesn’t actually have to live with these power lines.  Seems fair.

And, by the way, don’t worry, these power lines are harmless. In time, you’ll grow to love them, and they hardly affect property values at all.  Any health impacts are purely imaginary and we’ll deny them until we’re blue in the face.  Remember asbestos and tobacco?

Well, anyway, rather than dwelling on what was a pretty predictable outcome we need to think about what we do next because we’re not going to roll over and play dead.

First of all, the root of the problem is the government, who, without being able to demonstrate there is a customer at the end of this, deems this line to be “critical”.  They also maintain it is “critical” despite the fact it won’t be energized to more than 15% of its capacity until at least 2027.  (This is in the applicant’s own submission).  Clearly, that must be critical.  That’s why they put Bill 50 in place to make sure the AUC didn’t even get to question the need for this line.

So, what do we do?  I think the answer is we need to do whatever we can to make sure this government doesn’t continue ruining the lives of Albertans.  I never wanted to get really political but I think the time has come.  I would appreciate your perspective on this, but, from where I sit, this government needs to go.

Second of all, we need to pursue whatever legal avenues we can.  I don’t know if there is any ability to challenge the AUC’s decision, and, let’s face it, if we do they will probably decide we won’t get reimbursed for our more than $500,000 in expenses for the hearing (wow, that’s fair too!).  But still, it is an avenue we must explore.

I think our last line of defense against this insanity is a class-action lawsuit.  Anyone who maintains there is no loss of property value when power lines are run by people’s homes is clearly delusional.  The loss in value is real and it is huge – at a modest 15% we estimate around $200M, and 15% is a very low-ball estimate.  Anyway, that’s for the class-action counsel to figure out.

So, please stay with us as we sort out what we’re going to do.  Change government, appeal decision, sue for losses?  Not sure.  Perhaps there are other avenues and we welcome hearing from you.

As always thank you for your support. I wish we had a better message to send tonight but I suppose this was reasonably predictable.

Thanks.

Bruce Johnson

President, RETA

Apparently, despite written letters from the Industrial Power Consumers Association of Alberta and Alberta Direct Connect, not to mention dozens of other objections from industry associations and taxpayer advocacy groups, Premier Redford has determined that the Heartland Transmission Line, in all of it’s 6,000 megawatt glory, is in fact actually required.

Two questions: If this is so critical then who are the customers (no one seems to be putting their hand up), and again, if this is so critical, why does the Heartland Project Team’s own documents show that the line won’t be energized to more than 15% of its capacity until at least 2027?  Doesn’t sound particularly critical to me, but then, who am I (as a taxpayer who has to foot the bill) to judge?

RETA has maintained these transmission projects are not required and congratulates Minister Morton for deciding to conduct a review.  We will be asking the government to be included in the review process so that we can lend our perspective and offer alternatives to building massive transmission towers all across the landscape of our province.

Consistent with RETA’s Final Argument and Reply Argument submitted to the Alberta Utilities Commission (AUC), RETA VP Technical, John Kristensen, has responded in this letter to the Sherwood Park News that the facts clearly indicate the Heartland line is not needed. There are many reasons it is not needed including: 85% of its capacity will not be used, there is only one tar sands upgrader being built in the Heartland region, any tar sands upgraders built don’t need coal-fired power from Wabamun because they will co-generate their own electricity, local industry and municipal governments have shown the line is not needed, and residents living along the applicants’ preferred and alternate routes have shown it is not needed.

This is why RETA has asked the AUC in its Final Argument and Reply Argument to deny AltaLink’s and EPCOR’s application altogether to build the line, or if somehow the AUC determines it is in the best public interest that the line is built, to direct the applicants to bury the line when it runs near people and environmentally sensitive areas. Burying high voltage power lines eliminates almost all of the very negative impacts on health, safety, livestock, crops, the environment, property values and aesthetics.

The Sherwood Park News reports that Strathcona County Council believes it is important to keep an open dialogue with the new Premier and Cabinet on Bill 50 and the proposed Heartland line. This is particularly important because Strathcona County’s 13-year Cabinet representation has been lost with the announcement of Premier Redford’s new Cabinet. Some Councillors have indicated the County is going to continue the fight and they’re going to keep trying to get the line buried.

In this article, Garnett Genuis, Wildrose Alliance candidate for Sherwood Park, says, “…the new Premier’s support for the Heartland Transmission Project further indicates that Sherwood Park’s concerns are not a priority for this government.”

Stay tuned for more on this.

What is particularly angering Albertans is the fact that, although we now have no input on the need for all of these new expensive lines, we have to pay 100% of the cost of these lines, while the transmission companies like AltaLink, EPCOR and ATCO end up owning them, and reaping a guaranteed 9% annual return on our investment. And, to top it all off, those Albertans who are so unfortunate to live next to these proposed so-called “critical” power lines, will suffer a double-whammy……they will have to pay for those lines, and then have their health, safety, property values and overall quality of life negatively impacted.

Is it any wonder Albertans want the controversial Bill 50 repealed?

CBC News

RETA has previously reported on research that indicates exposure to overhead high voltage power line electromagnetic fields (EMFs) reduces overall crop growth and negatively affects numerous important physiological characteristics including: shoot length, root length, leaf area, leaf weight, shoot/root ratio, total biomass and total water content. These impacts obviously result in economic loss.

Burying high voltage lines would significantly reduce these agricultural economic losses by reducing EMFs.

The proponents of the Heartland Transmission Project, AltaLink and EPCOR, indicate in their facility application to the Alberta Utilities Commission (AUC) that a whopping 85% of the capacity of this proposed line will not be used until 2027, and then 70% of its capacity will not be used thereafter. Whether you’re an electrical engineer or not, the obvious question is, “Why then is this massive double-circuit 500 kilovolt power line being proposed?” The line, with towers up to 77 metres tall (253 feet) would be the largest power line ever built in Alberta, with negative impacts not ever experienced before in our province.

The reason both the Alberta Government and the Alberta Electric System Operator (AESO) have given for building the Heartland line is the new tar sands upgraders in the Industrial Heartland will need the power. Well, in 2008, nine upgraders were planned – now there is only one. The real irony is, any tar sands upgraders that might get built in the Industrial Heartland will co-generate their own electricity, so will not require the dirty coal-fired electricity from Wabamun that the proposed Heartland line would transmit. Again, the obvious question is, “Why then is the Heartland line deemed necessary by the Alberta Government and the AESO?”

Hopefully, the upcoming decision by the AUC will reflect the facts presented at the Heartland hearing that lasted from April 11 to May 18, 2011. The facts clearly indicate that the Heartland Transmission Project is not needed. However, if this line is built, it must be buried when it runs close to homes, schools, daycares, hospitals and environmentally sensitive areas.

Her recent comment to the Calgary Herald that makes sense is that not all the lines labelled as “critical transmission infrastructure” by the Alberta Government in Bill 50 are necessary. Another comment that makes sense is that, “If for any reason there was ever a decision made to export electricity, the cost of all of that transmission must be paid by the customer – and the customer in that case would be the United States.” As well, her comment that the Alberta Electric System Operator (AESO) needs to more seriously consider electricity costs to consumers, makes sense.

A comment by the new Premier that does not make sense is that the proposed Heartland transmission line is necessary. RETA President Bruce Johnson has already responded by asking why the Heartland line needs to be so massive, and why does it need to be above ground and ruin countless people’s lives?

According to AltaLink and EPCOR, the proposed Heartland line will be energized to only 15% of its total capacity until 2027, and then to only 30% of its total capacity thereafter. Why then is a double-circuit 500 kilovolt line with 77-metre-tall towers needed if 85% and 70% of its total capacity will never be used?? This makes no sense whatsoever. To add to the question of why the Heartland line is even necessary, when the line was first planned, there were 9 bitumen upgraders that were going to be built in the Industrial Heartland – now there is only one. And, any upgrader that is built in the Heartland will co-generate its own electricity, will not require dirty coal-fired power from Wabamun, and therefore the Heartland line is not needed.

If the new Premier thinks a Heartland line between Wabamun and the Industrial Heartland is necessary, and if it is built above ground, it will negatively impact 5,194 homes (15,000 – 18,000 people), several schools, many businesses including daycares, and a hospital. These impacts include health, safety, property values, the local environment, aesthetics and overall quality of life. RETA’s position for the past 3 years has been that high voltage power lines must be buried if they are built close to homes, schools, daycares, hospitals and environmentally sensitive areas. If high voltage lines are not buried in such unique circumstances, then those impacted must be fairly compensated on the basis of replacement value (not market value which has already been significantly diminished by power line proposals).

It appears that Edmonton, Sherwood Park and Strathcona County residents are in for a long battle to keep the proposed Heartland line from being built above ground through the Sherwood Park and Edmonton Greenbelts (AltaLink’s and EPCOR’s preferred route).

Gary Mar received 49% of the final votes cast for the second ballot on October 1 (when voters’ 1st choices and 2nd choices of those who voted for Doug Horner were combined). Alison Redford received 51% of the votes, and is the new leader of the Alberta P.C. Party and new Premier of Alberta. RETA congratulates Premier Redford on her victory.

“Gary has clearly stated that there are problems in the way electricity is handled in Alberta. AESO and the AUC need to consider the impact to Albertans when approving new generation and transmission lines. Government needs to have clear policies on where transmission lines should be buried. Determining where they go is not as simple as drawing straight lines on a map.”

With these commitments from Gary Mar, we encourage Albertans who want to fix the way electricity generation and transmission have been handled in Alberta to vote for Gary Mar on Saturday, October 1 from 9:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. Click here to find your poll.

Gary Mar has said, if he becomes Premier,  he would put the Heartland Transmission Project on hold until his many questions are answered, several of which are:

1. Is it feasible to bury the line?

2. Is the line even needed?

3. How much is it really going to cost?

4. How long are Alberta ratepayers going to pay for this line?

5. How does it affect the school that is close to the line?

6. How does it affect people’s property values?

Mar has also said he would amend Bill 50 to remove Cabinet’s discretionary power to decide which new transmission projects are “critical”, and that the need for new power lines can be determined, as in the past, by the Alberta Utilities Commission in full consultation with Alberta consumers.

As a result of his considered approach on this subject, we are encouraging RETA members and other Albertans who have concerns about overhead high voltage power lines to vote for Gary Mar on Saturday, October 1, 9:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m.

To find out where your poll is click on http://www.albertapc.ab.ca/admin/Contentx/default.cfm?PageId=10031. $5.00 P.C. memberships are available for purchase at the polls.

Within his first 90 days as Premier, leadership candidate Gary Mar has recently said he would change Bill 50 so Cabinet no longer had the authority to create critical transmission infrastructure. He would ensure that Alberta ratepayers have input on the need for new high voltage lines. The St. Albert Gazette reports that he would also ask the Alberta Electric System Operator (AESO) to take another look at proposed north-south transmission lines. As well, Mar’s website indicates he would look at lowering electricity costs while maintaining reliability, which might require new and more efficient generation and transmission technologies.

In the past, Mar has indicated he would put a hold on the Heartland Transmission Project until numerous questions he has are answered. For example, in August, the Sherwood Park News reported that he said, “There are wide variances in respect to what it’s going to cost and over how long a period you’re going to pay for it and even very basic questions, such as do you need all this transmission now?” These questions need to be answered to his satisfaction before he would approve continuation of the project.

When asked about the Heartland line in April of this year, Mar told the Sherwood Park News, “I need to ask questions about how much power is needed in this area, is it feasible to bury the line underground? How does it affect the school that is close to the line? How is it affecting people’s property values? Those are all factors you need to take into account.”

Doug Horner was recently reported by the Edmonton Journal, Edmonton Sun and Calgary Herald  as promising, if he becomes Premier, to issue a request-for-proposals to bury power lines such as the proposed Heartland Transmission Project. He wants to find out how much it really costs to bury high voltage power lines, and then determine whether those additional capital costs to bury lines in special circumstances when they run close to high-density areas can be justified.

(RETA’s expert testimony at the recent Alberta Utilities Commission hearing on the proposed Heartland line indicates that a partially buried Heartland line could cost as little as only 15% more to build than an entirely above-ground line. However, if capital, maintenance and transmission loss costs are combined over the life of a line, a buried line can be cheaper than an above-ground line.)

Horner has also said a  government under his leadership would conduct a review of how competitive Alberta’s entire electrical system is, including an analysis of how transmission lines are built and financed, consumer price protection, and a strategy on alternative fuels and power generation. He’s also recommending a new mandate for the Alberta Electric System Operator (AESO).

Alison Redford wants to review Bill 50 and the need for both of the proposed north-south high voltage power lines. She has also recently suggested that the proposed Heartland line is necessary.

The power company, Ergon Energy, says the underground lines will provide long-term benefits to customers in the area, provide a more secure power supply to facilities, and permit faster restoration of power supply following major weather impacts on the network. The buried lines also allow the power company to defer building more substations, thereby resulting in cost savings.

(Why can’t transmission facility operators in Alberta adopt the same attitude about the benefits of burying specific sections of new high voltage power lines where there are high concentrations of people?)

Concerns were raised at the recent Alberta Utilities Commission hearing on the proposed Heartland power line about the high SNC-Lavalin engineering and management costs on this project. However, since the Alberta Government has included the Heartland Transmission Project within the Bill 50 dubiously-labeled “critical transmission infrastructure”, the public, industry and business community have no opportunity to ask questions on the cost accounting (or indeed the need) for this line. It’s nice to know the profits reaped by AltaLink from all of its projects in Alberta will be flowing to SNC-Lavalin in Montreal. And, the good news is, all of AltaLink’s transmission infrastructure will be fully paid for by Alberta electricity ratepayers, thanks to the Alberta Government’s changes to the infrastructure funding model some years ago.

The news gets even better. A little digging on SNC-Lavalin provides some insight into the kind of company that owns and controls AltaLink. Rabble.ca reports that SNC-Lavalin built a jail in Libya for Gadhafi to throw protesters into (before he was overthrown), and has been conducting other significant business with Gadhafi since 1986, totalling well over $1 billion.

This recent article provides details on many other SNC-Lavalin business arrangements (that Bourque Newswatch considers questionable) in Newfoundland, Quebec, Bangladesh and India, involving alleged kickbacks, creative accounting, and heavy lobbying of Canada’s federal Ministers and senior federal bureaucrats by SNC-Lavalin.

Throughout the AUC hearing, the applicants’ environmental consultants (Stantec Consulting Ltd.) referred to the wetlands and wetland complexes along their preferred route as “lower quality”, “not particularly important” and of “relatively low value to wildlife”. RETA, Strathcona County and the Sherwood Park Fish and Game Association challenged this erroneous habitat characterization by Stantec, pointing out the high numbers of birds along this route in normal water-level years.

Unlike the very biased low bird counts obtained by Stantec and included in their hearing evidence, they might be well advised to have conducted bird surveys this Fall. For example, RETA biologists have conducted daily bird surveys of the Bretona Pond wetland complex along and under the proposed Heartland line, and have counted anywhere from 500 to 2,300 waterbirds daily just before sunset. It is hard to believe how any professional biologists (Stantec) could characterize habitat with such high bird counts as “not particularly important”.

This is just one of many examples of the very biased environmental impact information presented by AltaLink’s and EPCOR’s consultants to the recent AUC hearing on the proposed Heartland line.

For example, one such organization in Chino Hills, California, known as Hope For The Hills, has been battling Southern California Edison and the California Public Utilities Commission to keep a 500 kilovolt line with towers up to 200 feet tall from being built right next to their homes. Chino Hills City has even sued Southern California Edison in an attempt to stop this line from being built so close to homes. Residents are worried about cancer and other health risks from the line’s electromagnetic fields, property devaluation, and towers falling over in earthquakes or wind storms. This is just one of hundreds of communities that has organized itself to protect residents’ health, safety, assets and overall quality of life.

With as much concern being expressed, almost universally, about the negative impacts of overhead lines on health, safety, the environment, property values and aesthetics, you would think the power generation and transmission industry would be doing all it could to address these concerns. Why aren’t more companies looking more seriously at generating power closer to where the power is needed, so fewer long transmission lines are required? Why aren’t more companies more seriously considering improved transmission technologies, such as burying new lines whenever they are built close to homes, schools, daycares, hospitals and environmentally sensitive areas? Why aren’t transmission companies compensating homeowners and businesses that are disadvantaged  by having high voltage lines built right next to them (disadvantaged financially and in terms of health)? Why would transmission companies rather spend millions of dollars fighting communities in order to continue building more overhead high voltage lines, rather than using safer technologies or routing choices? Spending a bit more money to address people’s concerns about overhead lines would in many cases cost far less than fighting communities over protracted periods of time.

As communities around the world become more organized, as they share more and more research and other information, and as safer transmission technologies are improved and drop in price, power transmission companies can no longer ignore the facts and try to pull the wool over our eyes. Yes, we all want and need electricity, but there are safer ways of getting it to our communities, our homes and our businesses. It’s time the electricity transmission industry joined the 21st century.

Rick garnered a respectable 10.1% of the total number of votes cast on September 17, province-wide,  for the new leader of the P.C. Party and next Premier of Alberta.

The writer suggests Albertans contact their MLA and demand that this draconian legislation be rescinded.

If you do, vote RICK ORMAN for Alberta’s next Premier, Saturday, Sept. 17 from 9:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m.

Click http://www.albertapc.ab.ca/admin/Contentx/default.cfm?PageId=10031 to find out where you vote in your constituency.

“That County Council having reviewed the evidence presented at the recent Alberta Utilities Commission (AUC) Heartland Transmission Line Hearings has concluded that the social and economic costs to the County, the Heartland and the Province greatly exceed the benefits. Accordingly, Sturgeon County Council opposes the construction of the Heartland Transmission Line as proposed.”

This position differs from the one the County took at the AUC hearings, where Sturgeon County recognized the need for a safe, secure and affordable electricity supply in order to meet Alberta’s present and future needs, but it shouldn’t jeopardize the viability of current or future commercial and industrial interests.

Sturgeon’s latest motion is in recognition of the massive overbuild of the planned Heartland line which will result in a significant increase in electricity transmission costs to Alberta ratepayers. This St. Albert Gazette article reports that RETA agrees the Heartland line is a massive overbuild. (The line would be energized to only 15% of its capacity until 2027, and then to only 30% of its capacity thereafter – which makes it a gargantuan overbuild.)

Not only has Rick committed to get new high voltage power lines buried when they are built close to densely-populated residential areas and schools (like the proposed Heartland line), but he has also enunciated well-thought-out policies on education, health care and many other sectors that would be refreshing changes for Alberta. He proposes a tax credit that would allow post-secondary students to pay off their student loans faster and stay in Alberta to work. In health care, Rick promises to address inordinate billing practices, abuse by health care service users, additional extended care facilities for chronically ill patients, and an improved home care system. He has also committed to follow through on finishing the Sherwood Park hospital promised by the Alberta Government so many years ago.

See earlier RETA blogs for details on how to vote for Rick Orman at the advance polls September 13, or at the election day polls September 17.

RETA has either spoken directly with each Alberta Progressive Conservative leadership candidate or a campaign representative, or researched each candidate’s positions on: burying high voltage power lines in special circumstances, who should pay to have lines buried in special circumstances, electricity transmission and related land use legislation, and specific views on the proposed Heartland Transmission Project. On the basis of this research, RETA has assigned a grade to each candidate and ranked them as follows:

1.  Rick Orman:  A+

2.  Gary Mar:  C

3.  Doug Horner:  C

4.  Ted Morton:  C-

5.  Doug Griffiths:  D

6.  Alison Redford:  D

On the basis of this report card ranking, the RETA Board is endorsing Rick Orman as the new leader of the Alberta P.C. Party and next Premier of Alberta. The RETA Board encourages its members and all Albertans concerned about overhead high voltage power line impacts on health, safety, property values, the environment and aesthetics, to vote for Rick Orman at the advance polls Tuesday, September 13 or at the election day polls on Saturday, September 17.

Polls are open from 9:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. To find out where to vote either at the advance polls on September 13 or at the election day polls on September 17, click on your provincial constituency here. To vote, you need a $5.00 membership in the Alberta P.C. Party; memberships can be purchased at your poll. Because so many fewer people vote in political party leadership elections than in provincial general elections, your vote REALLY COUNTS this time.

You can help change the way electricity is transmitted in Alberta by voting for Rick Orman.

In March 2011, the Alberta Liberal Energy Critic, Kent Hehr, indicated to the Legislative Assembly (see Alberta Hansard) that the Liberal Party supports burying the proposed Heartland Transmission Project due to health concerns by residents who would be living next to the line.

The way to ensure new high voltage power lines in Alberta are buried in these special circumstances is to:

• Vote for Rick Orman to become Alberta’s next Premier.

• Purchase a $5.00 membership in the Alberta P.C. Party here.

• To find out where to vote either at the advance polls on September 13 or at the election day polls on September 17, click on your provincial constituency here. (For example, residents living along the Sherwood Park and Edmonton Greenbelts, where AltaLink and EPCOR propose to build the Heartland line, would click on Sherwood Park, Strathcona, or Edmonton Ellerslie.)

Voting in this election is about getting new high voltage power lines buried when they should be, to reduce or eliminate negative impacts of overhead lines. It doesn’t matter how you normally vote in a provincial general election (which may well be called in Spring 2012); rather it’s about ensuring that an Alberta Government policy is written before the next provincial election that allows new power lines, such as the proposed Heartland line, to be buried in special circumstances.

On August 25, 2011, Rick Orman held a news conference in Sherwood Park where he clearly stated that, if he becomes Premier, he would ensure a new policy is developed that would allow new high voltage power lines to get buried in special circumstances when they are built near schools or densely-populated residential areas.  He cited the proposed Heartland line, with its massive 77-metre-tall (253 feet) towers, as an example. (See articles in the Edmonton Journal, Edmonton Sun and Sherwood Park News.)

Orman also indicated that any additional capital costs of burying new high voltage lines in special circumstances should be shared by all Alberta ratepayers, just as is the case with other electricity transmission infrastructure. He went on to say that “While the capital costs of burying a high-voltage power line may be higher than those for above-ground lines, these are offset by lower maintenance and loss-of-transmission costs for an underground line throughout its lifetime.”

VOTE FOR RICK ORMAN SEPTEMBER 17, 2011.

Regarding Bill 50 that removed public input on the need for new high voltage power lines, candidate Ted Morton says he would repeal the bill if he becomes Premier. Doug Griffiths, Alison Redford, Rick Orman and Gary Mar have gone on record as saying the bill needs to be reviewed or changes are required to make sure the public has some say on whether the new proposed lines are needed. Doug Horner says Bill 50 is fine as it is and does not require review. See this Winnipeg Free Press article.

Specifically on the issue of burying high voltage lines in special circumstances, only one candidate – Rick Orman – has been unequivocal that the lines need to be buried when they run near densely-populated residential areas. Orman has cited the proposed massive 500kV double-circuit Heartland line as the “poster child” for power line special circumstances, and would get the line buried near the densely-populated residential areas in Strathcona County and Edmonton if he becomes Premier. No other candidate has publicly addressed burying high voltage power lines as strongly or directly as Orman. Most recently, candidate Doug Horner asked a lot of questions about the underground technology but gave no answers.

Rick Orman’s support for burying high voltage lines in special circumstances has earned the strong endorsement of Strathcona Mayor Linda Osinchuk and RETA. RETA has encouraged its members and other Albertans concerned about the negative impacts of overhead high voltage power lines to support Rick Orman’s bid to become Premier by purchasing a $5.00 membership in the Alberta P.C. Party at http://www.voterickorman.com/ and voting for Orman September 17. Irrespective of your political history or how you have voted in provincial general elections, RETA encourages Albertans to help decide who becomes Alberta’s next Premier.

This 500 kilovolt high voltage direct current (HVDC) line has many landowners concerned about their health, safety, property values, the environment and aesthetics. For over a year now, affected landowners have formed numerous groups to oppose the line (e.g., Vegreville Area Landowners Transmission Line Opposition Association {VALTOA}, and Voice of Community and Land {VOCAL}). This is one of several proposed new power lines dubiously labeled as “critical transmission infrastructure” in Bill 50, the controversial legislation passed in 2009 by the Alberta Government which took away any public input on the need and accountability for all these new high voltage lines.

You will have to check regularly, however, for frequent updates to our “Latest News”.

Based on your requests, we have also recently added a home page search option…..just scroll down the right-hand menu bar to “Home Page Search Categories” and click on your category choice.

Many municipalities and citizen groups (e.g., SOUL) have expressed their opposition to this line since it was proposed by ATC. (Opposition would be minimal, or eliminated, if the line was buried.)

This Sherwood Park News article reports Alberta P.C. leadership candidate Gary Mar wants to put a hold on construction of the Heartland line because there are too many unanswered questions regarding its cost, the period over which ratepayers would be paying for the line, and do we need all this transmission now? Mar wants these questions answered before he would approve continuation of the project.

These comments follow closely on the heels of Alberta P.C. leadership candidate Rick Orman’s commitment last week to get the Heartland line buried if it is built, and ensure that the costs are shared by all Alberta electricity ratepayers. This strong commitment by Mr. Orman earned the support of Strathcona County Mayor Linda Osinchuk and RETA . RETA encourages its members, and other Albertans concerned about overhead high voltage power lines, to purchase a $5.00 membership in the Alberta P.C. Party and vote for Rick Orman on September 17. Regardless of your political background, RETA encourages Albertans to participate in the election of Alberta’s next Premier.

Would it not make sense to bury power lines in areas that are ravaged by hurricanes on a regular basis? The millions of dollars saved in power line repair and maintenance costs, as well as down time and lost revenues from industry and businesses would more than pay any additional capital costs to bury the lines. Over the life of a power line, underground lines are cheaper than overhead lines.

Mr. Orman went on to say, if elected leader of the Alberta P.C. Party, he would make sure a policy was written that would allow for power lines to be buried in areas where there are dense residential populations and where there are special circumstances (such as for the proposed Heartland line).

RETA President Bruce Johnson said RETA supports Mr. Orman’s position and encourages its over 8,000 members, and other Albertans concerned about the negative effects of overhead high voltage power lines, to buy a $5.00 membership in the P.C. Party and vote for Rick Orman on September 17. Memberships can be purchased online at http://www.voterickorman.com/. Regardless of your political background, RETA encourages you to participate in the election of Alberta’s next Premier.

Mayor Linda Osinchuk also supports Mr. Orman for his strong stand on the power line issue, as well as other issues important to Strathcona County residents.

Strathcona County Mayor Linda Osinchuk and RETA President Bruce Johnson are delighted that one of the P.C. leadership candidates has come out so strong in support of something they have been fighting for for over 3 years. Both indicated that Mr. Orman was bold in supporting the underground transmission technology that has been gaining rapid support around the world as people find out more about the negative health, safety, environmental, property value and aesthetic impacts of overhead high voltage power lines. See the Mayor’s support here and RETA’s news release here .

The RETA Executive will be encouraging its over 8,000 registered members to support Rick Orman by purchasing a P.C. membership and voting for him on September 17 and October 1 (if the vote goes to a second ballot). Bruce Johnson said, “If Mr. Orman is willing to support us, we certainly are willing to support him.”

Read more about the benefits of burying high voltage power lines here.

The Livingstone Landowners Group, representing about 100 area landowners, accuse AltaLink and the Alberta Electric System Operator of trying to move an already approved route between Pincher Creek and the Crowsnest Pass  to a more pristine area. The main beef by affected landowners is with not being consulted about this major proposed routing change. Landowners argue AltaLink’s new proposed route would effectively industrialize and fragment the Porcupine Hills, Oldman River basin and the Livingstone Range (all iconic landscapes).

The Alberta Utilities Commission felt the proposed changes were significant enough to warrant a separate 3-day public hearing, scheduled to end August 25.

Electricity transmission companies have been developing measures for years in an attempt to mitigate the high numbers of bird deaths resulting primarily from collision with high voltage power lines and towers. They have tried using markers, flags and other diverters to decrease bird deaths that are reported in the literature to be up to 214 deaths/kilometre of power line/year (and even higher in ideal avian habitat). Estimates of bird deaths in most studies are generally considered to be low due to a number of factors including: inability to find dead birds that have crashed into lines, injured birds that are able to crawl away from under the lines and die later some distance from the lines, predators consuming dead birds before they can be found and counted, etc.

Avian biologists for Strathcona County (Dr. Erin Bayne) and RETA (John Kristensen) presented evidence at the recent Alberta Utilities Commission hearing on the proposed 500kV double-circuit Heartland line that would have towers up to 77m tall. Evidence focused on studies that estimated the magnitude of bird deaths from collision with overhead high voltage lines. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service estimates up to 174 million bird deaths annually in the U.S. from collisions with overhead transmission lines. Studies in North Dakota prairie wetlands estimate 124 bird deaths/kilometre/year. In the Netherlands, studies have estimated 58 bird deaths/kilometre/year, 113 deaths/km/yr and 464 deaths/km/yr in agricultural lands, grassland and near rivers, respectively. See this Fact Sheet for some of these studies.

Based on extrapolations from the literature, and the high numbers of birds and bird species present along the proposed Heartland power line, as many as 14,000 birds could get killed annually along the 66-kilometre overhead line between the Ellerslie community in Edmonton and the Industrial Heartland. The only way to effectively reduce bird deaths from collision with power lines and towers is to bury the lines, especially near areas with known high bird populations. Simply put, buried power lines do not kill birds.

Putting markers or diverters on high voltage lines is just a band-aid solution. Not only do birds continue to get killed, but the markers add to the unsightliness of the already unsightly lines and towers.

Read about the many other benefits of burying high voltage lines.

Among his many other accomplishments and interests, Mr. Conroy was a strong supporter of RETA, and voiced his opposition in many ways to the proposed overhead Heartland power line. On April 20, 2011, he appeared at the Heartland Alberta Utilities Commission Community Hearing Session in Sherwood Park to formally make his views known on the proposed line.

Mr. Conroy spoke about his concerns primarily about the health impacts of overhead high voltage line electromagnetic fields, and secondarily about the financial impacts to nearby property values. He stressed that if there were any additional capital costs associated with burying the Heartland line, ratepayers in the entire province should contribute toward these costs (since presumably the Heartland line would benefit all Albertans). Mr. Conroy ended his presentation to the AUC by asking the Commission to please think of the children first when developing its decision on the Heartland line.

Mr. Conroy’s son indicated that his father’s final request was for people to phone their MLA and request that the Heartland power line be buried and the Sherwood Park hospital finished.

RETA salutes Dave Conroy and his many contributions to issues important to Strathcona County.

Significant evidence was submitted at the AUC hearing to show the line isn’t necessary because the Industrial Heartland will not require the coal-fired electricity from Wabamun, as was initially anticipated. And, so many facts were submitted on the negative impacts of an overhead Heartland line on health, safety, property values, the environment and aesthetics that, should the AUC decide the line can be built, it must be buried to eliminate these negative effects.

RETA indicates the facts speak for themselves, and the RETA membership won’t stand quietly by and let a decision be made to build the line above ground through the Sherwood Park and Edmonton Greenbelts.

Mr. Cowburn joins hundreds of organizations and individual Albertans who have indicated publicly and at the recent Heartland Alberta Utilities Commission (AUC) hearing that the Heartland line is either a massive overbuild or is not necessary at all.

The proposed double circuit 500kV line is rated to carry a whopping 6,000 megawatts of electricity from coal-fired generation at Wabamun to the Industrial Heartland. This compares to peak provincial demand of about only 10,000 megawatts. This means the proposed Heartland line would add 60% of the entire province of Alberta’s peak transmission requirement.

The Alberta Government’s and the Alberta Electric System Operator’s (AESO) initial rationale for this gargantuan power line was the construction of 9 new tar sands upgraders in the Industrial Heartland. Due to changing economic realities that involve tar sands companies shipping bitumen by pipeline to the U.S. where it is cheaper to process, only one upgrader might now be built in the Industrial Heartland. The real irony is none of the upgraders initially planned, or any actually to be built, will require dirty coal-fired electricity from Wabamun because they will be co-generating their own cleaner electricity on-site.

And this is one of the reasons why the vast majority of the interveners in the recent Heartland hearing have asked the AUC to deny the application by AltaLink and EPCOR to build this massive power line, the largest ever planned for Alberta.

The Alberta Venture article focuses on Alberta’s failed attempt to deregulate electricity generation and retail. According to Rick Cowburn, there isn’t an area of economic activity in Alberta more beset by failure than electricity. He says, “The glorious experiment that we’ve tried with competitive electric markets is severely challenged – and I’m being polite about it.”

Cowburn goes on to say, “The balancing that we were hoping was going to happen – that there’d be strong retailers who could get some sort of stability and balance in policy – isn’t there.” The retail market remains dominated by the same players that dominated before deregulation began. “They’re the only ones that have the size to be able to function in this thing, and they have all the infrastructure they inherited from the old monopoly system.”

This failed deregulation experiment is being criticized as one of the reasons Alberta electricity costs are skyrocketing. Power generation and retail deregulation have also failed in the U.S.

A recent National Geographic article provides more insight into the potential for solar storms causing significant power outages at the regional or national level for weeks or even months.

Solar storm clouds can carry billions of tons of matter moving at 2,000 kilometres/second. If these clouds reach Earth’s magnetosphere, their charged particles become electromagnetically coupled to Earth’s magnetic field and generate large electrical currents millions of amperes strong. The sprawling electrical grid on Earth’s surface acts like an antenna, allowing these currents to flow into high voltage transmission lines. These powerful currents can cause transformers to overheat and burn out. This can then lead to voltage collapse when it is no longer possible to push needed power through transmission lines.

A full power collapse may result, or even if this does not happen, fluctuating voltage in the transmission system can cause the grid to become unstable which can impact transformers, relays, capacitors and even the power plant generators. Of course, all of these impacts have significant costs.

The “perfect storm” is brewing. Scientists anticipate stronger solar storms in 2013, and indicate that risks to Earth’s electrical grids are greatest at higher latitudes. Solar storms are global in nature, and could wreak havoc in Canada.

Rather than attempting to minimize the potential impacts of solar storms on our electrical grid in Canada, transmission facility owners continue to plan for and build more overhead high voltage and super-high-voltage power lines. If new high voltage lines were buried, over time, the majority of our grid system would be underground and not susceptible to solar storms.

Read about the many other benefits of burying high voltage power lines.

The majority of studies researched report anywhere from minor to major increased risks of health problems associated with prolonged exposure to EMFs. Health problems include increased risks of childhood and adult leukemia, many other forms of cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, Lou Gehrig’s disease, suicide, depression, stress, several types of heart disease, tumor growths, skin growths, impairment of perception and memory, genetic defects, gland production deficiencies, mental and behavioural problems, immune system deficiencies, nervous system disorders, miscarriages, birth defects, stunting of growth, blood and circulatory problems, fatigue, headache, nausea, male sexual dysfunction, sleep deprivation, electromagnetic hypersensitivity, and aggravation of asthma, tinnitus, multiple sclerosis, diabetes and Attention Deficit Disorder.

While well-known and respected scientists have referred to the “conclusive links” and “causal correlations” between EMFs and the above-mentioned diseases, electricity transmission facility owners refuse to recognize these results, and continue to cite Health Canada and the World Health Organization (WHO). Both of these institutions have seriously downplayed the negative health effects of overhead high voltage power lines, and have been heavily criticized by EMF health experts as being out-of-touch and unduly influenced by the power industry.

Those who deny the health effects of EMFs have argued there is no biological mechanism to explain the negative health risks. RETA has reported on what has been described by scientists as the core biological mechanism or explanation for so many documented negative health impacts of EMFs. Melatonin, which is a hormone produced in the pineal gland of the brain, is one of the body’s most powerful natural defenses against many diseases and other health problems. EMF exposure can reduce melatonin production to the point where this hormone is no longer able to defend the body against disease.

Until recently, most medical and scientific studies have referred to the “strong correlations” between EMFs and reduced melatonin production, but most scientists have been reluctant to label the relationship as “cause and effect” without definitive proof. Several very recent studies provide proof. A 2010 study which appeared in Bioelectromagnetics, Signal Transduction of the Melatonin Receptor MT1 is Disrupted in Breast Cancer Cells by Electromagnetic Fields, includes the following quote:

“These results convincingly prove the negative effect of EMF on the antiestrogenic effect of melatonin in breast cancer cells.”

In lay terms, it means this study convincingly proves that EMFs negatively affect one of the body’s most powerful natural defenses against cancer.

For close to 3 years, RETA has advocated the burial of high voltage power lines whenever they are built close to where people live, work or attend school, because burying these lines eliminates the negative health effects of overhead line EMFs. When will transmission facility owners, the Alberta Electric System Operator (AESO), the Alberta Government, Health Canada and the WHO start taking the health of citizens seriously when it comes to high voltage power lines??

There are many examples of tornadoes and other high wind storms toppling high voltage transmission towers and lines.

One of the most recent tornadoes in Canada occurred July 23, 2011 in Lambton County, Ontario. Environment Canada confirmed that a force F2 tornado with wind speeds between 180 and 230km/hour touched down and toppled 8 high voltage steel transmission towers. The downed towers and power lines cut electricity to 13,000 customers from Sarnia to London. There was significant damage and destruction but fortunately no deaths or injuries were reported. A Hydro One spokesperson said the amount of damage to the towers was highly unusual, as they are built to withstand very strong winds.

Similar assurances are given by other transmission facility owners, namely that their high voltage towers are built to withstand tornadoes and other high winds. However, in 1987, a force F3 tornado touched down in Edmonton, Alberta, causing between $6 million and $8 million damage to TransAlta’s high voltage transmission equipment.  The storm destroyed 49 240kV double circuit steel towers, 17 138kV double circuit steel towers, and 134 138kV single circuit wooden structures. Winds were estimated as high as 330km/hour. A total of 27 people were killed, nearly 300 were injured, and 750 families were left homeless. See this Fact Sheet for further details of this tornado and other high voltage power lines brought down by severe weather conditions.

There is much speculation that tornadoes, once touched down, will follow the path of high voltage transmission lines such as was the case with the Edmonton tornado in 1987. This is just one of the many reasons residents and businesses are worried about being located near high voltage power lines. Common sense suggests that new high voltage lines should not be built near homes, schools, daycare centres or any other facilities with high numbers of people. As a result, one would think that both transmission facility owners and governments would want to exercise caution when siting new high voltage lines.

Unfortunately, AltaLink, EPCOR, the Alberta Electric System Operator, and the Alberta Government all prefer the proposed 500kV double circuit Heartland Transmission Line to be built above ground next to 5,194 homes, several schools and daycare centres, and a hospital in Edmonton, Sherwood Park and Sturgeon County. An above ground high voltage power line with towers up to 76m tall built so close to so many people would be an accident waiting to happen, should another tornado ever touch down in the Edmonton area.

New high voltage power lines built near so many people must be buried. Underground lines do not blow over in wind storms and have many other benefits when compared to overhead lines.

On the basis of news reports, crashes occur under a number of circumstances including during: take off and landing, crop dusting, drying moisture off cherries, military training, and sudden altitude loss. Two examples are reported by the Associated Press and KTLA News.

RETA’s submission, which may be read here, summarizes reasons for the Alberta Utilities Commission to deny the Heartland application, or if the Commission deems it in the public interest that the line be built, to direct the applicants to bury the line when it runs near people and environmentally sensitive areas.

First, one of the most challenging issues facing Quest in his constituency is the contentious Heartland Transmission Project. His constituents insist the Heartland line is not necessary and Bill 50 that legislated the building of this line should be scrapped; or, if the Alberta Government insists on getting this line built, it must be buried whenever it is built near homes, schools, daycare centres, hospitals and environmentally sensitive areas.

Second, Doug Horner has been reported (May 25) to say Bill 50 does not need to be repealed or even reviewed. And, Mr. Horner has also said numerous times that an above ground Heartland line should be built in the Sherwood Park Greenbelt (right next to Dave Quest’s constituents, including Colchester Elementary School). In fact, Mr. Horner is the only one of the six P.C. leadership candidates who has been so clear on his support of Bill 50 and of an overhead line being built along AltaLink’s and EPCOR’s preferred route which would directly and adversely impact 5,194 homes (over 15,000 people) within the constituencies of Hon. Iris Evans, Hon. Gene Zwozdesky, Dave Quest, Naresh Bhardwaj, Peter Sandhu, Tony Vandermeer and Jeff Johnson. The other five P.C. leadership candidates have indicated they would either repeal or review Bill 50 if elected leader, and several have suggested that burying high voltage power lines should be considered in some circumstances.

RETA reported some time ago that SNC-Lavalin has been doing business with Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi since 1986. Based on news reports including this rabble.ca article, SNC-Lavalin has signed deals worth well over $1 billion with Gadhafi. SNC-Lavalin’s annual revenues in Libya apparently totaled $279 million in 2009 and $418 million in 2010. Most shocking is the revelation that SNC-Lavalin has been playing a role in building prisons in Libya including a $275 million state-of-the-art prison for Gadhafi in the Libyan capital of Tripoli.

As AltaLink’s parent company, is SNC-Lavalin the kind of company Albertans want to be involved in building AltaLink’s proposed Heartland Transmission Project and Western Alberta Transmission Line? SNC-Lavalin would be conducting the engineering and contract management work for AltaLink, as well as much of the construction of overhead towers and lines.

Final written arguments by the Applicants and interveners were due June 20, 2011. As one of many interveners that opposes this project as submitted by AltaLink and EPCOR, RETA has filed its final written arguments on behalf of its many members who would be directly and adversely impacted, as well as on behalf of the many other RETA members who strongly support RETA’s position and arguments. RETA currently has well over 8,000 registered members.

We encourage you to read RETA’s final arguments here. Briefly, we agree with the many other interveners who argue that a 500kV Heartland line is not needed. The Applicants, the Alberta Electric System Operator (AESO) and the Alberta Government have failed to show, at the AUC hearing or to the public, that this line is needed. In fact, the Applicants plan on energizing the Heartland line to only 15% of its capacity to 2027, and after that to only 30% of its capacity. Perhaps only 1 or 2 of the 9 tar sands upgraders initially planned might actually be built in the Industrial Heartland, and ironically, any that are built would co-generate their own electricity and not require the proposed Heartland line to transmit dirty coal-fired electricity from Wabamun.

RETA also argues that the Applicants failed to conduct an appropriate public consultation process under AUC rules. During the hearing, almost every intervener that represented a landowner interest provided example after example of how AltaLink and EPCOR failed to adequately consult with them. Tower heights were changed, preferred and alternate routes were changed, there were mail out errors, many landowners were not even consulted, consultation forms started off with very leading and biased comments, critical information was withheld from landowners, some landowners were intimidated, visual simulations of the towers and lines were misrepresented, baseline environmental data and other public input was ignored, and neighbours were pitted against one another by the Applicants.

The Applicants failed to put forward sufficient evidence on routing. Their preferred and alternate routes were selected on the basis of desk-top analyses and predetermined biases. The Applicants did not statistically weight any of their selection variables or metrics, which means variables like short-term soil compaction impacts during construction are weighted equally with the impacts on thousands of households throughout the 60-year life of the line. The Applicants recommend building an above ground line with towers up to 77m tall (the tallest anywhere in Alberta) next to 5,200 households (over 15,000 people), an elementary school, a daycare centre, many other businesses and many environmentally sensitive areas. AltaLink and EPCOR could not have selected a worse location with greater impacts…even if they had tried.

As well, the Applicants failed to put forward sufficient evidence on the most appropriate and cost-effective underground option. They intentionally and significantly inflated the costs of partial undergrounding, by including only an underground option with construction and operation failure rate standards many times that of their above ground option. In fact, they “gold-plated” the underground option in their facility application to intentionally make it appear less attractive compared to their above ground option. RETA experts provided evidence that, rather than a doubling of the costs to bury the line as suggested by the Applicants, the capital cost could be only 15% higher than an overhead option. And, when you combine capital, maintenance and transmission loss costs over the 60-year life of the line, an underground line would be less costly than an overhead line.

On the basis of the above, and many other reasons, RETA has requested that the AUC deny the HTP facility application.

Should the AUC decide they have sufficient evidence to make a decision on routing, which RETA does not believe to be the case, then RETA requests that the line be buried whenever it is built close to homes, schools, daycares, hospitals and environmentally sensitive areas.  A buried line:

1. eliminates the electrical field and reduces the magnetic field through phase cancellation,
2. reduces the negative health impacts of an overhead line to almost zero,
3. is safer because it can’t electrocute people or animals,
4. is safer because 77m-tall towers and lines can’t fall over in storms,
5. does not cause nearby pipeline corrosion or hazardous induced currents in pipelines,
6. does not lower adjacent property values,
7. is not an eyesore,
8. does not buzz or hum,
9. does not negatively affect tourism,
10. does not kill thousands of birds annually through collision,
11. is more reliable,
12. has lower maintenance costs,
13. is more efficient and has lower transmission loss costs, and
14. can be buried for almost the same capital cost as an overhead line.

Finally, in the event the AUC approves the application as filed , RETA submits that impacted homeowners, landowners, schools and businesses should be fairly compensated such that none of these is out-of-pocket.

RETA strongly believes that the AUC has sufficient evidence to deny the Heartland Transmission Project facility application as filed and amended prior to, during and following the hearing. AltaLink and EPCOR cannot be permitted to negatively impact so many people, businesses, schools, and environmentally sensitive areas.

If this line is approved, it must be noted that the Heartland line was characterized throughout the hearing by the Applicants, interveners, and the Commission as the largest project ever to be built in Alberta. RETA submits that unique projects and their impacts require unique solutions. In the event it is approved, the Heartland line must be buried when it is built near people and environmentally sensitive areas.

The research, conducted by S. Somasekaran through the Madurai Kamaraj University in India, studied the effects of overhead high voltage power line 230 kilovolt and 110 kilovolt EMFs on four selected crops: black gram (black lentil), maize (corn), cow pea (field pea), and rice. In both field and laboratory studies, where experimental plants exposed to EMFs  and control plants not exposed to EMFs were compared, the following growth and physiological characteristics of the four crop plants  were reduced significantly for exposed plants: shoot length, root length, leaf area, leaf fresh weight, specific leaf weight, shoot/root ratio, total biomass content and total water content. A similar trend was reported in biochemical characteristics including chloropyll a, b and total content; carotenoid content, soluble sugar, soluble starch; and soluble protein.

Reduced growth and physiological factors were due primarily to the negative effect of EMFs on cell division and cell enlargement. The reduction in growth, and physiological and biochemical parameters of the crop plants was greater in close proximity to the 230kV power lines than to the 110kV lines.

The author concluded that overhead high voltage power line EMFs cause stress in these crop plants which negatively affects production, leading to economic loss.

Somasekaran also studied the effects of high voltage power line EMFs on natural vegetation, and found the number of herbaceous species, the number of taxonomic families and the herb diversity indices were all higher in a natural control forest than in a forest under high voltage transmission lines.

Results of this research can most certainly be extrapolated to other cultivated crop and natural vegetation species around the world.  One would expect that farmers and forest harvest companies would be concerned about such economic losses associated with overhead high voltage power lines. Buried power lines would cause no such losses.

This information confirms what many Albertans have feared for the past several years. As a result of these most recently-leaked documents, critics of the Alberta Government’s plans to build a $16 billion electricity transmission system without any accountability or public studies to determine whether or not the new lines are needed are calling for a major judicial inquiry into the massive export project to be funded by Alberta power consumers.

Shortly following the 2003 cable from the Ottawa U.S. embassy, Alberta Energy Minister Murray Smith and the rest of the Alberta Energy Department started planning for the export of Alberta electricity. First, the previous 50:50 split for financing power lines between the transmission industry and Alberta ratepayers was changed to place the entire financial burden on Alberta ratepayers.

A year after the 2008 cable was sent, the Alberta Government passed 3 controversial and interconnected bills (Bills 19, 36 and 50) that concentrated decision-making on power lines with the Alberta Cabinet. A growing public backlash against these 3 bills has been problematic for the provincial government. First, opposition parties (Wildrose, Liberal, NDP, Alberta Party) criticized the bills, as well as a growing number of Alberta landowners, industry and businesses. Most recently, several Alberta Progressive Conservative Party leadership candidates have questioned Bill 50 and the provincial government’s plans to build massive new high voltage power lines throughout Alberta. See Ted Morton news release, Alberta Surface Rights Group blog, Calgary Sun, Calgary Herald (1), Calgary Herald (2), Edmonton Journal (1), Edmonton Journal (2), Cochrane Eagle and Camrose Booster for details.

The 8-fold increase in Alberta’s electricity transmission capacity, as planned by the provincial government, is not necessary and in fact the Industrial Power Consumers Association of Alberta says it will make Alberta industry uncompetitive due to high transmission costs to pay for all the new lines. A significant portion of the profits will flow from Alberta to AltaLink’s parent company in Montreal, SNC-Lavalin, which now owns 100% of AltaLink.

AltaLink and the Alberta P.C. Party are closely aligned, with AltaLink’s Senior VP (Leigh Clarke) serving as Calgary Region VP of the P.C. Party until very recently; and Patricia Nelson, a former Tory Energy Minister, currently sitting on AltaLink’s Board of Directors. Many other key Tory insiders have strong relationships with AltaLink.

This mess gets worse with revelations last week that SNC-Lavalin has been working for Moammar Gadhafi in Libya since 1986, and is reported to be currently building a jail for Gadhafi in Tripoli. Is this the kind of company we want building overhead high voltage power lines in Alberta?

Rural landowners along the Applicants’ preferred route presented experts on radio interference and routing. The radio interference expert confirmed information presented earlier at the hearing that the Applicants’ 3.95 km setback from the Department of National Defence radio receiver site was far more than the DND’s required 1.6 km setback. Existing 138kV and 240kV lines less than DND’s setback distance from the radio receiver site have caused no radio interference to date, and neither would the proposed 500kV line. If the line was built closer to the DND site, fewer rural landowners would be negatively impacted.

The routing expert discussed the Applicants’ flawed public consultation process, particularly with respect to routing. Many routing segments were dropped or added without any consultation  with directly affected landowners or other stakeholders. The Applicant did not properly identify the overall lowest impact route when it selected its preferred route. The routing expert discussed several other routes he had proposed which would follow existing roadways or transmission lines, or minimize the total distance of the power line through more industrial land. He suggested the Applicants did not appear to have fairly or properly weighted environmental, agricultural, proximity and other factors when selecting their preferred route.

A panel of 15 rural landowners presented their concerns with the preferred route, as well as personal accounts of how they had been treated by the Applicants and their agents. Landowners described their concerns about health impacts of overhead power line EMFs, visual impacts,  electromagnetic sensitivity, noise, stress, and interference with internet access. They were not asked by Heartland staff what plans they had for their land and what impacts would the proposed power line have on those plans.

The Applicants were criticized for avoiding buyouts by jogging around homes just enough to meet their subjectively-selected 150-metre minimum distance between homes and the power line (less if the line is not built on your property). Unskilled people who were not able or willing to answer many questions were sent to interview landowners. Neighbours were pitted against neighbours by the Applicants, and landowners’ positions were often misrepresented to neighbours in an attempt to rationalize specific routing decisions.

City of Edmonton Councillor Karen Leibovici spoke about the September 2009 Motion passed by Council that all 500kV power lines within the City must be buried or if not buried they should be built where they have the least impact on residents. (The Applicants’ preferred route affected the greatest number of residents.) As well, the City’s Motion stated that the citizens of Edmonton should not disproportionately subsidize the costs of such a line. She went on to say the City and RETA had worked together to present expert testimony on health effects of overhead power line EMFs, stress, property devaluation, visual impacts, environmental impacts, benefits of burying the line, and undergrounding costs.

Councillor Leibovici discussed the negative impacts of an overhead Heartland line on the North Saskatchewan River, the City’s “crown jewel”, and indicated the river valley was protected by City bylaw. She said adding a third overhead high voltage line in the Ellerslie community would be too much of an assault on people’s visual senses, and that a line of massive towers would circle the south and east sides of Edmonton “like a giant electrified fence”. Monster lines with towers twice as high as any built before in Alberta were never contemplated.

She stated that the Edmonton Greenbelt (TUC) was meant for transportation and utilities that directly benefited Edmonton; whereas the proposed Heartland line would not serve Edmonton. She indicated that burying the line would eliminate all of the negative impacts of an overhead line. City planners discussed a recently conducted Angus Reid survey that reported 43% of Edmontonians surveyed are of the view that the Heartland Project should bypass Edmonton, 32% feel the line should be built in the Greenbelt (TUC) but it should be buried, and only 16% believe the line should be built above ground in the Greenbelt.

Cross examination of the Edmonton panel focused on establishment of the Restricted Development Area (Greenbelt) legislation in the 1970s to protect the land, and subsequent policy changes by the Alberta Government focusing on transportation and utilities.

Parkland County Mayor Rod Shaigec indicated the County agrees with the Applicants’ preferred route, suggesting that’s what the TUCs were developed for. Parkland had passed a Motion that the Heartland line should be buried when feasible. He discussed the potential impacts of an overhead line on the Wagner Natural Area, which is legislatively protected.

The City of Spruce Grove discussed the negative impacts an overhead line would have on two proposed residential developments by Beaverbrook Pioneer Ltd. and Qualico Developments West Ltd. An overhead line would ruin the view and landscape for several thousand future residents within 800m of the proposed line and would decrease values of future properties. Concerns were expressed about de-watering of bore holes for tower foundations because of the high water table in the area. A Spruce Grove planner said if the alternate route is selected, the line should be buried by Spruce Grove.

Don Rigney, Mayor of Sturgeon County and past Chair (and current Board member) of the Alberta Industrial Heartland Association (AIHA) spoke about the changing economic realities associated with need for the Heartland line. He pointed out that when the Alberta Electric System Operator (AESO) developed its power plan in 2008 there were plans for 5 to 9 bitumen upgraders in the Industrial Heartland – now there is only one. Bitumen upgraders are uneconomical in Alberta and that’s why tar sands companies are shipping the bitumen south to the U.S. through pipelines.

He discussed how much more efficient and environmentally friendly natural-gas-fired and co-generated electricity are than coal-fired electricity, and there was no need to transmit dirty coal-fired electricity from Wabamun to the Industrial Heartland.  He indicated the AIHA electricity demand forecasts were 12% to 50% of those estimated by the AESO. The AIHA had met with Alberta Energy and requested a re-evaluation of AESO’s demand forecast, but discovered that the government and the AESO were working closely together and were not willing to review need for all of these new lines based on changing economic scenarios.

Mayor Rigney concluded by saying that approval of the Heartland line was not in the public interest and would hurt the goals of the AIHA. He asked the AUC to stop this process and request a review of the AESO’s Needs Identification Document.

Parents are worried about the potential health risks to their children who are particularly vulnerable because their immune systems are not yet fully developed. Parents had recently been surveyed, and 95% indicated they would pull their children out of the school if an overhead Heartland line was built. This would result in Colchester School closing down, and parents wondered which other schools their children would be bused to, or whether there were even enough spaces available in other schools.

Those parents with special needs children are very concerned about the school being closed down because Colchester is one of only 2 schools in Strathcona County with special classes for their children. A 9-year-old student expressed her concern about either getting sick by staying in Colchester School after an overhead line was built or being forced to move to another school and lose all of her friends. Parents are unanimous in their request to get the power line buried by the school. Even if one or more of the towers were moved a bit further away from the school, parents still insist on the line being buried instead.

Lawyers representing rural landowners along the Applicants’ preferred route questioned the Department of National Defence on its 3.2-kilometre setback requirements from a radio receiver site, which means the proposed Heartland line would be built too close to several farmers. Two existing high voltage power lines situated much closer to the DND radio receiver site had apparently not caused any radio interference to date.

A panel of businessmen, business and industry representatives, and Sturgeon County residents expressed concerns about the negative socio-economic impacts of building the Heartland line and other 500kV lines legislated by Bill 50. Following are some of their comments. Landowners have been told to “take the hit” by having the Heartland line situated on their land for the greater public good. What a waste to have the new Heartland Substation built on prime agricultural land which could be producing food.

This is another financial transfer from Alberta to Quebec (AltaLink’s parent company is SNC-Lavalin centred in Montreal). The Heartland line and other planned 500kV lines are not needed or at minimum are overbuilds that will cost Albertans and Alberta business and industry billions of dollars. The Alberta Government, the AESO and transmission facility owners have not had to justify why all of these new lines are necessary. Bill 50 simply legislated that they be built.

The transmission part of our monthly electricity bills will increase significantly, and because industry pays the lion’s share of transmission costs, many companies will be forced to “go off the grid” and generate their own electricity, if they are able. This will leave remaining businesses, industry and residents to pay an even higher proportion of the overall provincial transmission costs, forcing some industry and business to leave Alberta and locate in other provinces where electricity prices are lower. Electricity bills for an Alberta-based steel manufacturer are 1.6 to 2.2 times higher than for its major competitors located in other provinces and the U.S.

The Industrial Power Consumers Association of Alberta indicated the transmission component of our monthly power bills will triple by 2017. For many businesses like the value-added food processing industry, competition from Europe and the U.S. is forcing Alberta companies to become as efficient as possible, which means they need to automate. Automation invariably uses more electricity and if electricity bills keep increasing in Alberta, companies either have to shut down or move somewhere else.

The Alberta Food Processors Association, representing 223 companies, has surveyed its members who have indicated that monthly power bills comprise rising percentages of their total operating costs. The AFPA estimates that hundreds of jobs will be lost in Alberta as owners look to relocate outside Alberta where electricity costs are lower.  This could be significant considering that currently about 27,000 people in Alberta are employed in this $11 billion (Alberta alone) industry. The panel will continue May 16.