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Proposal for Gas-fired Generator has Heated Up Border with B.C. by Joel Connelly Seattle Post-Intelligencer, March 5, 2001

ABBOTSFORD, B.C. -- Student choirs here sing "This Air Is Your Air" at rallies against the Sumas Energy 2 power plant proposed for a half-mile south of the U.S.-Canada border. They're putting new lyrics to a tune made famous by one-time Bonneville Power Administration troubadour Woody Guthrie.

The proud parents of the singers, along with other residents of the province, recently started receiving a $200-a-month rebate on their energy bills. The cash comes courtesy of British Columbia's lucrative power exports to the United States.

With the Northwest is squeezed for power, approval of the 660-megawatt natural gas power plant -- its output two-thirds that of a large nuclear project -- is in the hands of Washington state officials. Supporters see it as a key test of whether the state is willing to take the heat involved in bringing a big plant on line. But the project has provoked international opposition.

The highly charged decision is up to Gov. Gary Locke. The buck stops in the governor's office after last month's surprise decision by the state energy siting council to reject the so-called SE2 project.

Sumas Energy 2 sponsors aren't giving up, and today will make a move designed to get the governor off the hook.

The National Energy Systems Co. is asking the energy siting council to reconsider its decision "and hopefully giving them good reason to," says NESCO Vice President Chuck Martin. The company is proposing to drop its plan to use diesel oil as a backup fuel, a major source of environmental objections.

"That won't deter the opposition one bit," said Bo Bumford, a Sumas woodworker who has mobilized plant foes south of the border.

Opponents vow to raise their own new issue before the state siting council -- the plant site's proximity to an earthquake fault. Discovery of a possibly active fault -- 20 years ago and 30 miles to the south -- that put an irreparable crack in public support for Puget Power's Skagit Nuclear Project.

Martin promises that Sumas Energy 2 will be the cleanest, most efficient fuel-burning power plant on the Northwest grid. Sponsors produce charts showing that its emission rate for greenhouse gases will be much lower than the Chehalis coal plant or Vancouver's venerable Burrard power plant.

But SE2 would be built in what is, for residents on both sides of the border, a very sensitive back yard.

"We'd be the exhaust pipe for SE2," said James Griffiths, a student at Abbotsford Sr. High School, standing at a rally near a phalanx of city officialdom and a member of Canada's Parliament.

With a brisk wind blowing from the east down the Fraser River, Abbotsford was crystal clear last week. Mount Baker glistened at sunset, along with the Lucky Four peaks just up the Fraser Valley.

"Come back in the summer when the wind blows in from the ocean. Smog hangs over this valley. The Sumas plant would be too much," said John Smith, chairman of the Abbotsford School Board.

Hemmed in by water and mountains, greater Vancouver is spreading up the Fraser valley. South of the 49th parallel, rural Whatcom County remains pastoral and not heavily populated. In Canada, however, condominiums are climbing up hillsides and shopping centers sprawl out north of the Sumas border crossing.

In a report compiled by five doctors, the South Fraser Health Region found that Vancouver's air is cleaner than many other urban areas, and that air-pollution levels are stable. But there is a caveat: The highest concentrations of ozone are in the Fraser Valley.

Of course, not one molecule of pollution has yet come from the SE2 plant. (A much smaller gas-burning plant has been operating in Sumas since 1993.) But the big power project has galvanized the valley.

Rejecting Sumas Energy 2, the siting council said: "This plant would emit more than 3 tons of pollutants per day. Such an increase in emissions would create increased health hazards particularly to those suffering from asthma and other respiratory ailments."

National Energy Systems proposes to offset its emissions by paying to install new equipment at existing plants that cause pollution in the Fraser Valley. As public opinion has swung against SE2, however, local government agencies have not been returning Martin's phone calls.

The plant has sparked much emotion. Martin has received children's drawings of people in gas masks. After initial positive dealings with Abbotsford officials, he has lately been shunned.

And opposition has grown in Whatcom County, making previously pro-plant legislators duck for cover. It has spawned an unusual alliance of greens and rural conservatives protective of their lifestyle.

Sumas Energy 2 must pass through a variety of regulatory hoops. The energy siting council's recommendation goes to the governor. Locke has 60 days to decide. The governor's official decision can be appealed in court.

SE2 builders also need approval from the National Energy Board of Canada to run a power line 4 1/2 miles into British Columbia, where it would connect with a B.C. Hydro station.

Whatever Locke's current hairstyle (a subject of recurring media interest), the governor is certain to be running his fingers through it as he ponders the fate of SE2. He faces a close, tricky call.

Canadians criticize the plant, but are making a killing from the West Coast's energy crisis. British Columbia made $1 billion (Canadian) last year on power exports, charging California $500 per megawatt-hour.

"I'm your friendly out-of-state profiteer," Ken Peterson, head of B.C. Hydro's export subsidiary, joked recently.

But the siting council found the plant would not lead to lower Northwest energy costs because, in part, Sumas Energy 2 would sell its output "to the highest bidder, wherever that bidder is located."

The Fraser Valley's air pollution woes are self-inflicted, the product of more people and traffic. "Are we going to act on our own problems?" asked Kumal Dhillon, another Abbotsford student.

The siting council predicted, however, that problems would be magnified by Sumas Energy 2. "Although this plant design has much to recommend it," the panel added, "a number of the environmental impacts cannot be mitigated sufficiently. ..."

Or in the words of Abbotsford school chairman Smith, "This plant probably should be built somewhere, but not here."