New Government, New Hope?

Prince Edward Islanders find ourselves with a new slate of government players after the May 28, 2007 election. There is therefore some reason to be hopeful that we will yet have our concerns addressed. The problem of how high-voltage transmission lines compromise not only community welfare, but possibly community health as well, will not go away, much as the previous administration had hoped it might. Therefore, any smart new MLA or intelligent new policymaker would be well advised to make the construction of transmission corridors a priority for any real energy plans in the future.

Options and Solutions

There are many options available to address our concerns. The private landowner option we were working toward, at the behest of Maritime Electric, has been secured. But even if this were to fall through there are two other routes around our community, and they use provincial land.

1. The first is the decommissioned railroad bed (the “rails to trails”). This was tabled at the public information meeting at the end of March 2006. There is nothing, I repeat, nothing, wrong with using this public right of way for this transmission line. Transmission lines run on the rails to trails through Charlottetown, and the public uses these trails more than any other in the province. And, there are no property values to compromise along this infrastructure.

2. The government of Prince Edward Island owns three contiguous pieces of woodland that could easily serve the purpose. (I invite PEI government officials to do as I did, and get down to the land registry office and consult the orthomaps a little more closely.) These are NOT part of a protected old growth stand of Acadian forest in the area (known locally as the “Townsend woodlot”). These options are also available as a viable bypass.

It is so frustrating, given all of these solutions, that there has been such a failure of leadership thus far in our efforts to seek equitable redress and good representation for Grant Road/Gowan Brae.

Moving the Poles

And how exactly does one “move the poles”? According to Maritime Electric employees, the same ones who provided me with the two statements of purpose and goodwill posted here on May 27 (Post on "Power Plays"), moving the transmission line can be accomplished with minimal cost in three steps. The new transmission line is constructed, the utility schedules a “blackout” so that the new connection can be rerouted, and then they convert the old transmission line into regular residential electrical service infrastructure, by cutting the large poles down to size.

These solutions are well known among policy-makers and decision-makers in this province. One wonders, therefore, why they left us to the whim of Maritime Electric/Fortis over the past year to broker a deal with private landowners? To reiterate a point made earlier: we need a government that is going to protect all communities on Prince Edward Island.

The utility and the province lob the blame for the transmission line back and forth between them, each pointing to the other as the party responsible for our dilemma. This is no way to pursue an energy policy, and it is no way to run a province. Instead of requiring small rural communities to bear the cost and suffer the harm of these transmission lines, I believe it is more appropriate that the “partners” in any new energy installation should bear the cost of creating a safe corridor away from residential areas. We must do so if this province wishes to be a true “leader” in wind energy development in this country. We must do this if we want to remain a province which values community engagement, believes in pursuing development ethically.

The Bottom Line

If the province will not require Maritime Electric to pay the $100,000 to move the transmission line, then as the other partner in the Eastern Kings wind energy project, the province must pay for the transmission line bypass itself.

There was a lot of debate about ‘leadership’ in the course of the provincial election. Many aspects of good leadership were discussed, mainly focusing on how leadership was about making “the tough choices.” Well, that may be so, but the right choice depends on how widely and actively any given leader searches for possible solutions. I will leave new government leaders with this thought on the subject, which I hope they will consider in the weeks and months ahead:

Sometimes, leadership is about leaving things better then how you found them.