Norm Macdonald MLA                                Columbia River – Revelstoke

MEDIA RELEASE

For immediate release

April 11th, 2008

Macdonald calls for a moratorium on private power developments

The BC Liberal’s Energy Plan will result in the privatization of rivers and creeks across British Columbia.  Columbia River – Revelstoke MLA Norm Macdonald is calling for a halt to any further private power developments until all the consequences of the privatization plan, both economic and environmental, are fully investigated and understood.

“The BC Energy Plan is intended to serve private interests, and many of those private interests are very close to the BC Liberal party,” declared Macdonald.  “It does not serve the public interest.  It in fact compromises the public interest.”

The BC Energy Plan requires BC Hydro to no longer build power generation facilities and to purchase new energy from private producers at an inflated cost.  Private power generation facilities are being built across BC using as collateral the guaranteed income stream from the energy purchase agreements, and most of these developments are hydro-electric river-diversion projects.

“It has been said that the BC Energy Plan is likely the worst piece of public policy in British Columbia’s history.  The privatization agenda will result in increased costs to BC Hydro customers.  And it will also have drastic and irreversible impacts on our rivers and on wildlife habitat,” continued Macdonald.

“The BC Liberals and private power proponents are trying to sell these projects as clean and green, but their arguments just don’t hold water.  Developing dams, river diversion tunnels and power plants on hundreds of rivers across the province, and building the transmission lines to get this power to the grid, will have huge environmental impacts.”

Many of the key points in the BC Liberals Energy Plan were in direct response to the wish list developed by vested interest groups like the Independent Power Producers of Association of BC(IPPBC), and a close inspection of the Plan indicates that the real beneficiary of this policy is private industry.

Two comprehensive works have been written on this topic: the book Liquid Gold by Dr. John Calvert and the research paper Lost in Transmission by Dr. Marvin Shaffer.

“It is clear that the best interest of the people of British Columbia is not being served by the rush towards private power generation.  Until a full study of all the impacts can be completed, the government must stop any further private power developments on BC’s rivers.”