Regional District Concerned About Power Outages

By 250 News

Recent power outages in the Valemount, McBride region, have Directors on the Regional District of Fraser Fort George pushing for some committments and some answers.

There were 6 different power outages in the region in July, but the two most severe happened late in the month.  On the 23rd, electricty was cut to thousands of customers for 8 hours,  on the 29th, the lights went out again for a full 26 hours.

Both major outages happened on weekends when the temperature was in the mid 30 's.  The lost power meant grocery stores lost refridgeration and consequently thousands of dollars worth of produce and parishables.  Residents lost  anything that might have been in their fridge or freezers, not to mention  the loss of water for those who are on well system, sewage lift stations were not working, people did not have access to fans or air conditioners if they tried to escape from the heat, bank machines were offline, restaurants and businesses closed because they didn't have power.

Director Starchuck says with power out from Clearwater to Valemount and west to McBride,  there were three hour line ups at the gas stations which had a single generator to try and provide enough power to the pumps. The situation prompted calls to the  Provincial Emergency Preparedness people who  were getting set to  start bringing in refridgeration units and water. 

"Bob Elton, the CEO of B.C. Hydro has apologized to the residents of the Robson Valley through the local newspapers" says Director Starchuck  who adds Elton has "Made a committment to the residents of the Robson Valley that B.C. Hydro will develop an emergency contingency plan to deal with future outages."  Starchuck says as a result of those events, he wants the Regional District to press  Elton to come through on his promises.  He also wants to press B.C. Hydro to review it's communication plans to ensure "proper procedures are in place so that the appropriate contacts in Valemount, McBride and the Regional District are notified immediately when power outages occur." 

Starchcuk would like to see the grid line extended to Prince George, and  that B.C. Hydro  provide independant power plants, including diesel generators to Valemount and McBride so that in the event of an outage residents will only have to experience minimal disruption in service.

The situation is not new. 

Valemount Mayor, Jeanette Townsend says following a four day power outage in  2003, B.C. Hydro had developed a contingency plan that in the event of any  serious outage in the future, they would bring in a large generator that could  provide emergency power.   Townsend says somehow, that plan got lost in the shuffle "They have since transfered their staff members and the current  people who look after the Canoe -Robson area weren't aware of that."  She says there is no way B.C.Hydro is going to spend millions of dollars extending the grid from McBride to Prince George, but  she says if they would  bring in a generator as soon as it is known that a power outage is going to last for an extended period of time, she would be happy with that.

Chairman Colin Kinsley says the matter is of sufficient importance to ask for a face to face meeting with B.C. Hydro immediately.

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