No Need for School to Close if Heartland Line was Buried
As construction of the controversial overhead double-circuit 500 kilovolt Heartland Transmission Project continues, residents wonder why $20 million couldn’t have been spent burying a section of the Heartland power line right next to Colchester Elementary School rather than on moving nearly 200 students 11 kilometres away to another school.
RETA VP Technical, John Kristensen, is quoted by CTV Edmonton, “We made the pitch repeatedly”, regarding RETA’s request to have the line put underground. “We got very strong support from our local Strathcona County Council but our PC government, provincial government, really insisted this line be built above ground and it be built here…The Alberta government is busy telling us they need to build a whole bunch of brand new schools because the youth and children population is increasing in the province. At the same time we’re needlessly closing this very good and well maintained school.”
For more details on the Heartland power line closing Colchester School, see this link.
Meanwhile, landowners say their interests were ignored by the Alberta Utilities Commission (AUC) when it recently approved the route for the overhead 500kV Western Alberta Transmission Line from Genesee near Edmonton to Langdon near Calgary (CBC News). The AUC has a habit of defining “public interest” as what’s best for the transmission industry.
