Piney wants compensation for Hydro Minnesota transmission project

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 14/04/2014 (3662 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The RM of Piney held it’s budget hearing Monday night in Vassar. Not in the $2.76 million budget: compensation for the proposed 500-kilovolt Manitoba-Minnesota Transmission Project that would see the construction of a third transmission line running through the municipality to the United States. Reeve Boutang wants the province to explain why municipalities are getting millions in 10-year payouts for the Bipole III project but Piney receives zero dollars for the steel towers and electric lines being built through its land.

“We do get compensation on tax relief from the CNR and the gas line in our area, so those utilities pay not only to us but all the RMs that they go through. They’re not exorbitant amount of money but it’s fair compensation, whereas Hydro, nothing. I pointed out that they’re not scared to use our roads when they have to maintain these lines and yet we don’t get anything out of that,” said Boutang.

Correspondence sent to Minister Stan Struthers three weeks ago has not yet been answered said Boutang. The RM will be meeting with Hydro separately when they are in Piney for a community open house at the Piney Community Centre on Apr. 23.

The proposed transmission line has been narrowed down to two possible routes relatively close together running through the rural municipalities Headingly, Tache, Ste Anne, La Broquerie, and Piney to a border crossing by the bi-national airport south of the community of Piney west of Highway 89.

 

For more info on the Hydro project and full details on Piney’s budget, pick up the Apr. 17 edition of The Carillon.