Here is a section from the BC Hydro info site online in reference to fees paid by Hydro to the various governments in B.C.
“These annual payments have three components: water rental fees, which BC Hydro pays to the province for the use of provincial water resources; taxes and grants in lieu of taxes, which BC Hydro pays to the province and the cities, towns, and municipalities in which it has operations; and the dividend to the province, which BC Hydro pays to its shareholder (the provincial government), and which the province sets at 85 per cent of BC Hydro’s net income for the year.”
Many BC Hydro ratepayers have long maintained that water rental fees and dividend payments are blatant provincial cash grabs, because the government sets both the water rental rate and BC Hydro’s dividend obligation, i.e., the percentage of net income that BC Hydro must pay to the province each year as a dividend.
You have to remember that the water rental fee is for the use of the water and it is returned to the system exactly as it was collected.
With fracking, most companies do not even report water usage. Water from Williston Lake is used, the same as Hydro.
The question I have is this: if BC Hydro must pay a water rental fee for their use of water and it is returned in the same condition as obtained, why does the oil and gas industry get a free ride?
The water is polluted with chemicals for fracking and the potential for developing earthquakes is being studied. Yet they can do this for no cost to the corporate world.
Doesn’t anyone in the provincial or federal government see that this is wrong? Why are they even pulling it out of Williston when we need that in low flows for power generation.
Bob Tritschler
Parksville
