THE CANADIAN PRESS — RED DEER, ALTA.

Lethbridge Herald June 20 2012.

Critics of a proposed power line that would run through central Alberta have told a hearing that they are worried about tornadoes. Lawyer Raymond Bastedo, who speaks for a group of landowners, said they have concerns about what impact twisters or other severe weather would have.

He said it’s important which route AltaLink’s proposed $1.4-billion transmission line would take.

AltaLink’s preferred option runs through an area that already has a lot of power lines. Bastedo said that a tornado in an area with a number of twinned lines could have a severe mpact on service.

The Alberta Utilities Commission is hearing arguments for and against the AltaLink proposal for a line between the Edmonton and Calgary areas.

Bastedo questioned AltaLink representatives over whether they had enough data about the probability of tornadoes. AltaLink said it chose its route because it “most effectively minimizes or mitigates impacts” by crossing the least amount of cultivated land, having a low environmental impact and parallels 211 kilometres of existing lines.

By Ryan Parker

Posted 4 days ago

Right up until Altalink’s open house held in Hillspring on Wed, June 6, 2012, people like Anne Stevick and others had been hearing a lot of rumours about the proposed Goose Lake to Etzikom Coulee Transmission Project. Stevick, as well as others, had heard that some residents who had had face-to-face consultations with Altalink employees may have signed a kind of letter of intent that if the line did cross their property in the suture they would receive $10,000.

At the open house, Leanne Niblock, Altalink Media Relations, and other Altalink employees listened to questions and set the record straight. At this point in the project it is far too early for anyone to signing anything with the promise of money. Right now the only thing those who have been given consultations are signing is a form that states that the project details have been discussed, and whether or not that person would be willing to enter into a land easement. A land easement being a binding agreement that the landowner retains ownership of the land and is compensated for having a line on it, but restricts things like building close to the line.

“What we are doing right now is consultation meetings with people, chatting and getting information,” Niblock said. “People do agree with what they discuss and its accuracy, that is all that we are doing at this point. We do not compensate for consultations, we speak to thousands of people and we don’t want there to be the idea that we are paying someone for their information.”

The confusion most likely came from a misconception of a $10,000 early access and routing consent payment. This payment is made to landowners for access to their property for things like surveys. This payment can be made prior to the Alberta Utilities Commission (AUC) decision on the transmission line’s actual route, but Altalink must first determine a preferred route, which they have not done yet.

“It gives us the opportunity to go in and do extra work, and this wasn’t in the first newsletter because it’s so early on in the process,” Niblock said. “It will be in subsequent newsletters but right now it’s so early then we have these multiple options that come out later in the process.”

In fact, Altalink had on display at their open house another proposed transmission line option which runs through the Blood Reserve. As of now, the discussions regarding the transmission line going across the Blood Reserve are still ongoing with the Band.

Right now, new newsletters should be on their way to those who could be affected by the proposed project with updated line options and a landowner compensation section.

By Mariam Ibrahim and Karen Kleiss, edmontonjournal.com June 20, 2012 Comments (50)

EDMONTON – Cleanup is underway after an oil spill Monday along Enbridge’s Athabasca pipeline, southeast of Elk Point, the Alberta Energy Resources Conservation Board says.

The company estimates about 230,000 litres of heavy crude oil spilled from a pumping station along the surface pipeline about 24 kilometres southeast of Elk Point, the board said Tuesday.

The spill was reported to the appropriate agencies on Monday, said ERCB spokesman Darin Barter.

“It does take some time to assess the site, get our field folks on-site, determine the extent of the spill, talk to the company and see what they estimate the volume at,” Barter said. “This one is significant enough that we issued a news release on it.”

The pipeline was shut down early Monday and the pumping station was fenced in. The company restarted the line Monday afternoon but shut it down again after bring ordered to by the ERCB.

“The oil has not affected either running or standing water,” Barter said.

He could not provide more detailed information on the terrain where the spill happened.

Barter said it’s too early to say what caused the spill.

In a statement, Enbridge said the cause “appears to be a failure of a flange gasket” in the pumping station. A flange gasket seals two pipe components together. The company said scare cannons have been set up as a deterrent to prevent birds from landing in the spill.

The majority of the spill was confined to Enbridge’s site, but about 30,000 litres spilled on a landowner’s field, the company said.

ERCB inspectors arrived at the site Monday, Barter said.

“We’re on-site with our field surveillance (people) who have expertise in spill cleanup in pipeline operations. Our pipeline operations folks will be on-site and ensuring the company takes every appropriate measure to clean up the oil off the ground,” Barter said.

“At the same time, we’ll start an investigation. Our incident investigators essentially go out there and they start measuring, taking pictures and doing what it is that investigators do that will formulate ultimately what exactly happened and if there’s enforcement action that’s required.”

It is up to Enbridge to pay for and complete the cleanup, he said.

“If we believe the company needs to have additional equipment or needs to move faster in some responses, we’ll direct them to do that. We oversee; we don’t participate.”

The 541-kilometre pipeline stretches from the Fort McMurray oilsands to Hardisty and has a capacity of 345,000 barrels per day. The company wants to expand that to 570,000 barrels per day with the addition of new pumping stations. Construction of the pipeline was completed in 1999.

The spill was the third in the past two months. Asked about the implications for Alberta’s reputation abroad, Energy Minister Ken Hughes urged Canadians to think of the broader context.

“Canadians buy gas at their local gas station. If they thought about it at all, they’d realize that gas generally gets there by one means of transportation or another, and it involves a lot of pipelines.

“They make the choice to buy gasoline.”

Hughes emphasized that pipelines are the safest way to transport oil and that Alberta has rules requiring pipeline operators to tell the public about leaks and to clean them up immediately.

“I believe our reputation as a province … is governed by how we respond when incidents like this happen, how industry responds, how responsible they are,” Hughes said.

“In that respect, Alberta has a very good reputation and has very high standards.”

Greenpeace spokesman Mike Hudema said in a statement the spill underscores the need for a safety assessment of Alberta’s pipelines.

“At minimum we need an independent assessment of Alberta’s pipeline safety to show the deficits in management, oversight, enforcement and infrastructure.”

The province is backing the construction of the controversial Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline intended to transport Alberta bitumen from Hardisty to Kitimat, B.C. If built, the pipeline would allow Alberta to sell its oil to booming Asian markets.

Polls consistently show the majority of B.C. residents are opposed to the pipeline, in part because they fear that leaks will damage the environment.

Repeated leaks in Alberta could give critics ammunition, but Hughes said pipeline technology has “improved dramatically” in the past 50 years. He also highlighted the economic benefits of the Gateway project.

“There are two sides to the coin,” Hughes said. “One is that a strong western Canadian economy, driven by the energy industry, is good for all of Canada and particularly good for British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba.

“The economic opportunities in Western Canada are exceptional.”

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© Copyright (c) The Edmonton Journal

Original source article: Elk Point pipeline spill releases 230,000 litres of heavy crude: Enbridge

Transmission line hearing could end up costing taxpayers big: Anglin

EDMONTON, AB (June 14, 2012): Alberta taxpayers could be on hook for millions of dollars if the Alberta Utilities Commission’s hearing into the Western Alberta Transmission Line forges ahead, Wildrose Utilities Critic Joe Anglin said today.

In 2010, the AUC paid $35 million in taxpayer dollars to AltaLink after a 2007 transmission line hearing was declared a mistrial. The money was intended to recoup AltaLink’s costs for participating in the compromised hearing.

Yesterday, the AUC decided to forge ahead with the current WATL hearing despite a forthcoming Alberta Court of Appeal ruling that could change the entire scope of the hearing.

The Court will rule on whether or not the AUC has the authority to overturn the proposed line. Currently, the AUC claims it only has the power to decide where the line will go.

“We know this ruling could force this process to start all over again at Day 1. If so, it will fall on taxpayers – again – to compensate AltaLink,” Anglin said. “They’re making the same mistake again – and it’s Alberta families and businesses who will end up paying for it.”

When the hearing began on Monday, Anglin asked that the proceedings be adjourned until the Court of Appeal makes its ruling on the AUC’s jurisdiction. Yesterday, the AUC denied the adjournment.

“When a higher court is hearing an issue, the lower court doesn’t jump into the mix. It just isn’t done, but that’s what’s happening here,” Anglin said.

Wildrose.ca June 14,2012

By Mike De Souza, Postmedia News June 17, 2012

A spokeswoman for Enbridge said an updated oil spill response plan, submitted in March 2011 to a panel reviewing the project, provides updated information that the government would not have known about at the time of the meeting.

But representatives from Aboriginal and Northern Affairs Canada, formerly known as Indian and Northern Affairs Canada, expressed concerns that Enbridge gave “insufficient information on the general oil spill response plan and pipeline route through reserve lands,” said notes from the Nov. 25, 2010 meeting, released by the fisheries department through access to information legislation.

The teleconference came a few months after federal biologists expressed concerns that Enbridge was not making significant efforts to avoid “sensitive areas” along approximately 1,000 waterways crossed on the proposed route. One fisheries department scientist said that in some cases, Enbridge was “pushing for the cheapest option,” the Vancouver Sun and Postmedia News reported last week.

Representatives from all departments reached a “general consensus” at the November 2010 meeting that “Enbridge had not submitted enough information on the pipeline route,” noting that its proposed one kilometre corridor was too broad for an adequate evaluation of areas of concern.

Officials from Natural Resources Canada also expressed concerns at the meeting about “preliminary management and safety plans for (the) operation of (the) pipeline,” as well as a lack of information on the company’s land and water resource management plan. Environment Canada representatives also raised concerns that the company needed to do more research regarding wildlife potentially affected by the project.

The Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Affairs Department was not immediately able to say whether Enbridge had addressed all of its concerns.

The federal government also was warned in November 2010 that the courts could overrule the review process of the project because of “unreasonable” consultation with aboriginal communities.

Finance Minister Jim Flaherty responded in its last budget by offering $13.6 million over two years to the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency to support consultations with aboriginal communities.

The Harper government, which had been heavily lobbied by Enbridge over concerns about DFO demands, tabled Fisheries Act amendments in its budget implementation legislation, bill C-38, in April.

Those changes, which according to critics would “gut” DFO’s ability to protect habitat, became a flashpoint in the opposition’s battle against C-38.

A spokesman from Natural Resources Canada, Paul Duchesne, said department specialists were doing their job prior to making formal information requests that the company responded to in October and November of 2011.

He said the department subsequently recommended, through a government submission to the review panel in December 2011, that Enbridge make commitments for “additional studies and considerations during detailed design and project implementation.” These requests must now be addressed by the panel.

“NRCan’s expert scientists, as well as those at Environment Canada, are dedicated to ensuring that Canadians’ interests are protected through the evaluation of rigorous mitigation plans to protect our environment in every review,” said Duchesne.

At a cost of about $7 billion, the Northern Gateway Pipeline would be nearly 1,200 km in length from Edmonton to Kitimat on the west coast of British Columbia. It would carry an average of 525,000 barrels of petroleum per day to the west, and an average of 193,000 barrels of condensate, used to thin petroleum products for pipeline transport, per day to the east.

The proposed pipeline, crossing through B.C.’s Great Bear Rainforest, would also benefit oilsands companies, opening the door to new markets in Asia, allowing them to sell their heavy oil at higher prices than they now get from U.S. markets. But internal records also have suggested that the shipping routes of oil tankers that would transport the oil from the coasts could threaten critical habitat of species such as humpback whales and fin whales.

Enbridge’s March 2011 oil spill response plan indicated that the company was meeting or exceeding Canadian standards and that further operational spill response plans would be completed six months before the commissioning of the project with appropriate details to support the “emergency response along the right-of-way of the pipeline and its shipping routes in Canadian waters.”

Enbridge’s director of corporate and business communications, Jennifer Varey, said that the company always has had an “aggressive emergency response” drill and training program with comprehensive plans in place to respond to spills.

She said the company also created a special cross-business response team in 2011 “to respond to large-scale events anywhere in North America that would require more resources that a single region, or business unit, could provide.

“All of the company’s operating facilities maintain regular contact with communities and first responder organizations to keep them up to date and co-ordinated with Enbridge’s operations and contingency plans,” she said. “In addition, Enbridge works closely with landowners, regulatory agencies and other concerned parties to develop remediation and monitoring plans.”

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By Sheila Pratt, edmontonjournal.com June 13, 2012

EDMONTON – The Alberta Utilities Commission decided Wednesday to proceed with long-awaited hearings into Altalink’s proposed $1.4-billion north-south transmission line, despite objections from landowners calling for delay to await an appeal court decision.

The decision left some landowners unhappy, accusing the AUC of trying to “railroad” the hearings and warned this could set the stage for another court battle.

On Monday, landowners opposed to the line urged the AUC to hold off until the court of appeal gives its ruling on the whether the commission has the jurisdiction to turn down a transmission project “in the public interest.” The court’s ruling might affect how the board interprets what is in the public interest when it comes to the new line, they argued.

But the AUC said it made sense to proceed and “will save time and reduce prejudice to landowners who have waited years” to get started on the hearing to determine the exact route of the 350-kilometre 500-kV, DC power line between Wabamun Lake and Calgary.

“The parties are ready to go, the evidence is relevant, regardless of the Alberta Court of Appeal decision,” said the AUC, adding that hearing will resume today.

Joe Anglin, who has fought against the line for years and is now a Wildrose MLA, said the board’s decision was “irresponsible.”

“To proceed with a hearing when a superior court is hearing the matter of public interest is arrogant,” said Anglin.

The appeal court case is a test of the Electric Statutes Amendment Act, which gives the provincial cabinet the power to designate critical transmission projects without a public hearing to determine need.

The appeal case arises from the battle last year over the Heartland transmission line from Wabamun Lake into Strathcona County. At the time, lawyer Keith Wilson argued the AUC interpreted the definition of public interest too narrowly in its decision to approve the line.

Wilson then asked the appeal court to rule on the scope of public interest jurisdiction. In late March, the appeal court agreed to hear the case but no date has been set.

In that case, Wilson will ask the appeal court to examine the question of whether the commission can turn down a Bill 50 transmission line when the evidence shows the proposed line will do more social and economic harm than good.

In February 2009, the government passed Bill 50 and declared five transmission projects, including two new north-south lines, as critical infrastructure needed to upgrade the power grid to meet growing demand for electricity in the province. No public hearing was held to determine the need for the line.

The hearing for the second north-south line, proposed by ATCO, is scheduled to begin in mid-July.

In granting leave to appeal, Justice Ronald Berger wrote: “In my opinion it is imperative in the interests of certainty and consistency that this court pronounce on the issues.”

Wilson said he’s asking for the case to be expedited.

The first hearings into the proposed Altalink line were suspended in 2007 after a spy scandal. The regulating authority had hired private investigators to monitor people opposed to the line.

© Copyright (c) The Edmonton Journal

By Sheila Pratt, edmontonjournal.com June 11, 2012

By John Cotter, The Canadian Press June 10, 2012

DICKSON — People downstream of an oil pipeline breach in west-central Alberta are worried but hopeful the spill won’t seriously damage the Red Deer River they depend on for water and recreation.

Andrew Van Oosten and his friends were hoping to go fishing Saturday but were told by Alberta Environment officials to stay away from the water.

“I was going to go fishing but they said, ‘No, you’re not allowed,’ ” he said as huddled with his friends underneath a tarp at his campsite near the Gleniffer reservoir.

“You are not allowed to go near the water because it (oil) is washing up on shore. I hope it just passes by in a week or two.”

Out on the lake that provides the water supply for the city of Red Deer and other communities downstream from Thursday’s spill, crews were busy spreading booms across the surface to skim away any sour crude.

Plains Midstream Canada estimates as much as 475,000 litres of oil spilled and then leaked into the river. The company says the oil spilled into Jackson Creek near the community of Sundre, about 100 kilometres from Red Deer.

In a news release Saturday, the company said the crude oil has been contained within two booms it placed on the Gleniffer Reservoir, and that an additional boom was being positioned on the west end of the reservoir to expedite the cleanup.

“We deeply regret any impact this incident may have on local residents,” the news release stated.

Randy Westergaard of the Gleniffer Lake Resort is doing his best to deal calmly with a calamity that came as residents prepare for the summer season. The marina has been closed until further notice, as have a number of campsites in the area.

The resort includes 750 recreation lots and permanent homes purchased by people who love to go boating, fish, or just enjoy the clean air and pretty views.

Westergaard credits the company for moving quickly to deal with the mess, including trucking in drinking water to the resort.

“All I can say is that Plains Midstream stepped up to the plate immediately and as far as I can see are doing everything in their power,” he said.

“Who is to blame? The government are the ones who gave them approval in the first place. It’s unfortunate it had to happen.”

Alberta Premier Alison Redford assured Albertans on Saturday that the co-ordination to deal with the spill has been moving quickly.

“There was some concern that if the weather was difficult today that there might be a challenge,” Redford told reporters in Edmonton, immediately after speaking at the city’s gay pride festival.

“My understanding is the weather hasn’t impacted it and everything is on course.”

“We’re seeing some good containment.”

Redford has said this latest oil spill has raised questions about how oil pipelines are monitored and regulated.

She has promised a full investigation and said if there are safety shortfalls the government will make changes.

This is the second recent serious spill for Plains Midstream. In April of last year a company pipeline in northwestern Alberta ruptured, leaking more than 4.5 litres of oil. Just last week the company issued a release, showing clean up efforts near the spill are almost complete.

The Red Deer River spill comes at a time when Alberta-based pipelines such as Keystone XL in the proposed Northern gateway pipeline to the B.C. are under increasing public scrutiny.

Redford insisted on Saturday that the spills are not the norm.

“It’s actually an exception, if you think that we have hundreds of thousands of kilometres of pipelines across this province. There has been a leak and it has been contained,” Redford said.

“We have pipelines that criss-cross this province that are intact and work.”

Between the spill site and the Dickson dam, Plains Midstream is building a base of operations headquarters to stage and direct the cleanup effort that is to come.

On Saturday, a long line of transport trucks dropped off supplies at the camp as cranes and bulldozers laid down prefabricated flooring on the wet ground. Office trailers were being set up and clean-up equipment was being stockpiled as a helicopter buzzed overhead.

A company official said there is no official time line on when the clean up is expected to be complete on the fast moving river, which has been swollen in recent days by heavy rain.

The company said Saturday that an information centre has been set up for residents at a community hall in James River.

Closer to Sundre, within a few kilometres of the breached pipeline, a film of black ooze coats grass along the remote shoreline of the river. In pools and puddles away from the main river the oil has pooled, discolouring the water.

Back at Van Oosten’s campsite he and his friends sit around a fire, chatting and drinking beer.

“I hope to get fishing soon,” he says.

© Copyright (c)

By John Cotter, The Canadian Press, Calgary Herald June 10, 2012

CALGARY — A representative for the company whose pipeline spilled hundreds of thousands of litres of oil into an Alberta river suggests there were two strokes of luck that kept the problem from being worse.

Stephen Bart, the vice-president of crude-oil operations for Plains Midstream Canada, says the first piece of good luck was that the pipeline wasn’t flowing at the time.

He says the second was that the Red Deer River was swollen

with recent rain, which washed the oil to the Gleniffer Reservoir where it can be more easily contained by booms, leaving only localized pockets of oil on the river.

“While there is shoreline along the river that has been impacted, it has been confined largely to a number of these localized areas, that when we get cordoned off, we can address more fully,” Bart told reporters at a news conference on Sunday.

Plains Midstream Canada estimates between 1,000 and 3,000 barrels of oil spilled Thursday.

There’s no word yet on what caused the leak, but Bart told the news conference that the affected section of pipeline ran underneath the river.

Bart says there are people on foot who are looking for wildlife that may have been affected by the spill, but so far he says there have been few confirmed reports of injured animals so far.

He says some of the people on foot patrols have noise devices which can be used to scare birds away from landing on oil-affected areas.

Peter Hodson, a biology professor at Queen’s University and an expert on the effects of oil spills on fish and wildlife, says it’s promising that few struggling or injured animals have been spotted. He says it’s also good news for fish if the oil managed to get to the lake quickly before being churned up in the river.

But Hodson says the fact the water level in the river was high means grass and other land that’s further up on the riverbank is more likely to have been coated with oil.

“That means some animals, particularly the ducks that are nesting on the banks, and some of the animals like muskrat and beaver that use the banks quite a bit, may be that much more exposed to oil,” Hodson says.

Gleniffer Lake provides the water supply for the City of Red Deer and is a popular recreation area for fishing and boating. The company has been providing bottled water to people who draw their drinking water directly from the river and the reservoir. The City of Red Deer indicated on its website that it didn’t expect the spill to cause any problems.

Alberta Environment officials have been telling people to stay away from the water.

Bart says the booms have contained the oil to the western tip of the reservoir.

“Our goal, obviously, is to preserve the water quality and drinking water quality and minimize the impact to wildlife, and get the spill cleaned up and the water and land restored as quickly as possible,” he said.

Hodson says the cleanup along the river has to be done carefully so as not to disrupt nests and other animal habitat. Again, he says because the water flow on the river was high and the oil is further up on the bank, the oil will have to be wiped or scraped off of grasslands or marsh.

“You often need big machines and that means you have fairly heavy equipment running over the riverbank,” Hodson explains.

“It’s one of those things where the cure can be worse than the disease so it has to be done with a great deal of care.”

This is the second recent serious spill for Plains Midstream. In April of last year a company pipeline in northwestern Alberta ruptured, leaking more than 4.5 million litres of oil. Just last week the company issued a release, showing clean up efforts near the spill are almost complete.

Alberta Premier Alison Redford assured Albertans over the weekend that the co-ordination to deal with the spill has been moving quickly, and she noted that spills are rare.

Redford has said this latest oil spill has raised questions about how oil pipelines are monitored and regulated. She has promised a full investigation and said if there are safety shortfalls the government will make changes.

Original source article: Pipeline owner says oil wasn’t flowing at time of leak into Alberta river

By Sheila Pratt, edmontonjournal.com June 10, 2012

EDMONTON – Five years after a shocking spy scandal derailed hearings, Calgary-based Altalink is making a new bid for approval of a $1.4-billion north-south electricity transmission line, a project that has caused major political headaches for the Conservative government.

A battle is already brewing at the Alberta Utilities Commission hearings beginning Monday in Red Deer. Intervener Gavin Fitch has filed a motion for adjournment with the support of a half-dozen other groups, including Enmax, because of a recent decision from the Alberta Court of Appeal.

The court said it “is imperative in the interest of certainty and consistency” that it consider the scope of the definition of “public interest” that the commission must consider in making its decisions.

The case arises from last year’s battle over the Edmonton-area Heartland transmission line, the first new power-line project approved under the new Electric Statutes Amendment Act, also known as Bill 50.

The court’s ruling on the scope of “public interest” could affect the north-south line hearings, Fitch said. (The date for the appeal court hearing has not been set.)

Fitch also said he’s hoping for a quick decision on adjournment so as not to waste time at the hearing.

The utilities commission maintains this week’s hearings into the Western Alberta Transmission Line are to determine the route only, as the need for the line was mandated by the government in 2009 with Bill 50. This is the first of two new north-south lines decreed essential by the provincial government. Hearings for the eastern line will start in July.

About 200 people are lined up to voice their objections to the route.

Altalink says it is “confident “is has found the “least-impact” route for the 350-kilometre, 500-kV DC power line between Wabamun Lake and Calgary after extensive consultation with area residents since 2010.

“We’ve done a lot of work to get the best information, the lowest-impact route,” said spokesman Scott Schreiner.

The line, which would carry 1,000 megawatts of electricity to the south, would be paid for by electricity consumers.

The cost has gone up substantially since the 2007 proposal as Altalink has shifted to more costly direct current technology, Schreiner noted. The DC technology is more efficient and makes it easier to increase capacity on the line, up to 4,000 megawatts if needed, says Law. “It’s more expensive, but there are significant benefits.”

Newly elected Wildrose MLA Joe Anglin, an area landowner and longtime opponent of the proposed line, says he continues to believe the project is an expensive overbuild that will mean higher utility bills for consumers and small business, and electricity for export.

“The battle isn’t over,”says Anglin, who was to attend the hearing Monday in Red Deer.

“The resumption of a hearing is ridiculous,” given there has still not been a public needs assessment, said Anglin.

Also, the biggest demand for new power is in the oilsands, and this western line will not serve that market, he added.

The utilities commission spent months meeting with residents along the line last year, explaining the process and encouraging people to come forward, says spokesman Jim Law.

The commission will take the hearings into several smaller communities to accommodate residents who have signed up to speak, and it is encouraging residents to submit written briefs. It will also provide a live audio stream of proceedings.

“We are very conscious of our reputation and process,” said Law. “We are trying to accommodate as many people as we can. ”

The Stelmach government revamped the approval process after the 2007 spy scandal. It disbanded the Alberta Energy and Utilities Board, which had hired private investigators to spy on landowners opposed to the line.

The government set up the Alberta Utilities Commission to handle electricity projects. Security is now handled by the Solicitor General Department, not the hearing board.

Fitch, who represents residents north of Calgary, said Altalink has presented two alternative routes with some site-specific variations. That’s an improvement from the 2007 hearings, when only one option was offered, he said.

St. Albert lawyer Keith Wilson, who led the legal battle against the Heartland line, told the Journal he was pleased the court of appeal agreed to hear his case. He contends the commission used a narrower definition of public interest than Bill 50 calls for when it refused to consider socio-economic costs.

“The question is, can the commission say no to a proposed transmission line if the cost-benefit analysis is to the negative?” he said.

In his March 27 decision, Justice Ronald Berger wrote: “In my opinion, it is imperative in the interest of certainty and consistency that this court pronounce on the issues. ”

In the face of widespread opposition in rural Alberta last winter, which helped the Wildrose party become the official Opposition, Premier Alison Redford called for a review of the contentious grid expansion plans outlined in Bill 50.

Opponents are angry that Bill 50 removed the requirement for a public needs hearing for major electricity projects.

In February, the Critical Transmission Review Committee endorsed the government’s position that two new north-south lines are needed to meet the growing demand for power.

But it also recommended the province change its legislation to allow a public needs hearing on the last expansion mandated in Bill 50, a new line to Fort McMurray.

The first north-south line would include 1,000 towers and take two years to build. Approval could be granted early this fall.

© Copyright (c) The Edmonton Journal