A group of Anmore residents is continuing to press its case against BC Hydro’s plan to provide more power with a new 230 kilovolt (kF) line between Coquitlam and Vancouver, citing health concerns and property impacts.
A petition with 353 signatures protesting the plan and calling for existing and new infrastructure to be placed underground, has been presented to the BC Utilities Commission.
BC Hydro maintains that placing the new lines underground would be technically challenging and expensive, and work is planned for a right-of-way in Anmore that Hydro has used for years.
The petition started by resident Urs Ribary claims BC Hydro information ignores health risks to up to 700 people while the project’s original right of way is outdated. In the petition, he claims: “The fact that BC Hydro is obsessively insisting in their outdated right-of-way through Anmore, which was established nearly 60 years ago and bought for $1, and, only signed by one property owner in Anmore without any council, and, at a time before the moon landing when we had no personal computers, no internet, no cell phones, no WiFi and no modern passenger jet planes, but, going now through one-acre private properties currently worth $3,000,000 each."
According to BC Hydro, the route through Anmore doesn’t include the rights to place the lines underground, and if it did, a trench would need to be blasted, drilling would need to be done in a creek and deep manholes would need to be dug on private land.
More information about the petition is available at change.org; more information about the project is available at bchydro.com
