By Sam Van Schie

Nelson Star

The Regional District of the Central Kootenay is preparing to put its money where its mouth is to look into opportunities for publicly-owned independent power projects.

At an Oct. 8 general affairs meeting the directors overwhelmingly supported referring a recommendation to the next board meeting to use $30,000 from the general administration budget to hire a consultant to examine how the RDCK can participate in renewable energy projects.

The money was sitting unused in the existing budget. The district had budgeted the money for contracting somebody to look at the district’s tangible assets, but in fact staff were able to save the money by performing that assessment in house.

The money, if not reallocated, could be rolled forward into next year’s budget.

Jim Gustafson, Chief Administrative Officer for the RDCK, told the board that staff had no problem with reallocating the money for the initial research into IPPs, but said they shouldn’t rely on the general administration budget to find money for these types of projects.

“General admin funds are for day-to-day needs of the district, not projects or services,” Gustafson said. “If you want to start an energy project, it should stand on it’s own two feet as a separate service.”

A few directors who have been vocal about their objection to IPPs also expressed concern about paying to research something they opposed. All members of the RDCK pay into the general administration fund.

Area D Director Andrew Shadrack said he’d like an opportunity to have his area opt out of contributing to energy projects. The board allows regions to opt out of development services, and Shadrack asked that the same be allowed for this service.

But Gustafson cautioned that unless the RDCK go into this united it would be unlikely that they’d ever be able to amass enough public money to afford buy an energy project.

Nelson Mayor John Dooley, whose idea it was to make exploration of energy projects a board priority, encouraged directors to support this first step to fund research into what opportunities exist. He said that once they had more information individual director could decide if they want to buy into a next step.

“Let’s be forward thinking; let’s grab this measly 30,000 bucks and find out what’s out there,” Dooley told directors. “There may be opportunities that make so much sense that nobody would oppose them.”

He stressed that the projects the region buys didn’t need to be large.

“It could be something as simple as putting in a small generator on a creek to power a few homes or buying some solar panels where the benefits outweigh the costs,” said Dooley.

Currently local governments see very little direct financial benefit from power projects in the region. They do not receive tax from BC Hydro projects that are provincially owned because one level of government can’t tax another.

Only owning or being a partner in a project would gain the areas and municipalities access to the revenue produced from it.

Still, Area E Director Remona Faust said she thought the board was being sneaky moving forward with this without public consultation.

“I would be lynched if I let a back door deal go through this way,” she said. “I think the community needs to understand the full perimeters and potential future benefit and decide if they want to support it.”

However, Area B Director John Kettle pointed out that initial exploratory work done before they can bring it to the question to the public.

“Differences of opinions don’t necessarily mean back door or under handed,” said Kettle. “This [$30,000 report] will give us a foundation to make a decision if we want to ask the public to support the next phase.”

Dooley stressed that power projects are going ahead regardless of whether they are bought by public or private means.

“We can’t let private companies pull the rug out from under us,” said Dooley. “We can benefit greatly from developing these resources, and if we don’t somebody else will [develop and benefit from them].”