A Sturgeon County family’s quest to get a new public hearing on the Heartland Transmission project has been quashed by an Alberta court.
The Alberta Court of Appeal dismissed the case of Karen and Stuart Shaw against the Alberta Utilities Commission (AUC), AltaLink and Epcor Monday. (Karen Shaw is a member of Sturgeon County council, but filed this case as an ordinary resident.)
The Shaws had challenged the AUC’s approval of the $610 million Heartland Transmission Project – a large powerline meant to run electricity through Sturgeon County to the Alberta Industrial Heartland.
At issue was a 2009 law known as Bill 50, which allowed cabinet to designate certain powerlines as “critical” infrastructure and bypass the AUC’s usual public cost-benefit analysis.
When opponents argued before the AUC that the Heartland project was an expensive, unnecessary overbuild, the commission said it could not consider such arguments because of Bill 50.
Keith Wilson, the St. Albert lawyer representing the Shaws, had argued that the AUC had misinterpreted Bill 50, and still had the right and obligation to consider need and the public interest in its decisions.
Edmonton Justice Marina Paperny, writing on behalf of a three-judge panel, disagreed, noting that remarks from then-energy minister Mel Knight in the legislature clearly showed that Bill 50 was intended to remove that right and obligation.
“I conclude that when the government designates a transmission development as critical, the legislation intended that the government would assume sole responsibility for determining that the development is necessary and in the public interest,” she wrote. The AUC had made the right interpretation of the law.
Wilson said he and the Shaws were disappointed by the ruling, and had hoped that the court would order a new public hearing on the Heartland project. They could appeal to the Supreme Court, but there was little chance that the court would agree to hear their case.
“Our disappointment is with the government for passing such a foolhardy and financially irresponsible law,” Wilson said. Bill 50 exempted the Heartland, western and eastern transmission lines, which are collectively worth about $4 billion, from a proper cost-benefit analysis.
“We are now stuck with billions of dollars of transmission lines that according to industry and other experts are not needed,” Wilson said.
Groups such as the Alberta Industrial Heartland Association have said that the lines would drive up power prices throughout the province. A provincial review committee found that the western and eastern lines were needed, but did not rule on the Heartland project.
Line builders AltaLink and Epcor will soon apply to the AUC to raise electricity rates and pass these costs onto consumers, Wilson said. “We’ll all start to see the cost of delivering electricity rise and rise and rise,” he said, which will discourage industrial growth in Alberta.
This project has now been identified by Alberta law, approved by the regulatory process and validated by the courts, said Tim le Riche, spokesperson for the Heartland project. Towers for the project are now going up along Anthony Henday Drive, and the line should be complete by this September.
