Mountain View County council has deferred a decision on a request from Fortis to twin power lines on two county roadways leading into Olds.
The move came during the recent regularly scheduled council meeting.
"Fortis has indicated to the county that there is a need to provide an increase in power to an industrial park located within the southeast section of the Town of Olds," administration said in a briefing note to council “To accommodate this, Fortis indicates some portions of Rge. Rd. 20 and Twp. Rd. 324 will require power lines on both sides of the road allowance."
County policy #4019 states that “twinning of distribution power lines is not supported in Mountain View County” and that “requests for approval to twin power lines will be referred to council for direction.”
Fortis Alberta project manager Rob McTavish appeared before council on March 27 to outline the proposed twinning of the line.
He indicted that burying the line instead of running it above ground on the opposite side of the roadway from the existing line would be much more expensive.
The proposed line would bring power to the Sundial Growers Inc. cannabis production facility on the south boundary of Olds.
The company would be responsible for paying for the line upgrade, he said.
Reeve Bruce Beattie told McTavish that the county policy regarding twinning of power lines was developed following an earlier request for twin lines in the Eagle Hill area.
“We are looking for some pretty strong arguments as to why we should vary from that policy,” said Beattie.
Deputy Reeve Angela Aalbers asked if McTavish could provide county administration with cost estimates for both a twinning and a line burying option.
“That would be a very important piece of information for us to have for our discussion,” said Aalbers.
“Yes, we can do that for you,” said McTavish.
At the suggestion of Coun. Duncan Milne, McTavish was also asked to provide a cost estimate for the purchase of land running adjacent to the existing line so that the new line could be installed on the same side of the roadway.
Councillors passed a motion to have the matter brought back to council on April 12 for consideration.
Following the motion Beattie said the county has some safety concerns associated with twinning the line above ground.
“Our main concern is obviously safety in terms of having power poles on both sides of the road,” he said. “Plus these are heavier poles, bigger poles and they are closer together, about 10 metres closer together than a normal line.
“Those are things that are going to have to be taken into consideration by council when we bring this back on the 10th.”
Another consideration involves future construction near the lines, he said.
“We have had issues in the past with having lines moved when we reconstruct a road. Sometimes those power lines have to be moved out of the right-of-way in order for us to do construction. We have had issues around timely removal of some of that infrastructure.”
The county’s procedure #4019-01 states, in part, that “for applications that require municipal consent, requests for approval to twin power lines will be referred to council for direction.
“Prior to the request being referred to council, the requesting party will be encouraged to resolve all disputes that may arise between multiple agencies in accordance with sharing agreements that exist.”
