The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

m Orono Weekly Tlmea, Wednesday, November I, 2000 J 1 Weekly Times Serving East Clarington and beyond since 1937 Subscriptions $23.36 + $1.64 G.S.T. = $25.00/year ■ Publications Mail Registration No. 09301 Publishing 50 Issues Annually at the Office of Publication "We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada, through the Publications Assistance Program (PAP), toward our mailing costs" 5310 Main Street, P.O. Box 209, Orono, Ontario LOB 1M0 E-Mail Address: oronotimes@speedllne.ca Phone/Fax (905) 983-5301 Publisher/Editor Marg Zwart Principle and Fairness by Roy Forrester Leafing through this week's edition of the Orono Weekly Times it would seem that the Veridian hydro issue has heated up to become an election issue. Well, it should. Herny Sisson, in a recent letter to the editor took us back in history 75 years ago when Sir Adam Beck, founder of Ontario Hydro, foresaw electricity as the future lifeblood of Ontario and developed a non-profit, low cost, world-renowned system of electrical energy supply supply for this province. Until last year it operated through Ontario Hydro for rural areas and in built-up areas through local independent independent utilities elected by consumers of hydro. All nonprofit, nonprofit, low cost. That all changed last year when the province legislated legislated ownership of local utilities to the municipalities. The need for greed surfaced immediately, no exception in Clarington, and what was called "gouging" forced the Minister of Energy, Jim Wilson, to disallow any increase in hydro rates across the province. It may take another six months to a year before a decision comes from the province. The issue, in a sense, really isn't Veridian. It is the demands of the municipalities made through the decisions decisions of local councillors. In Clarington five of the seven councillors, Councillors Young, Mutton, Trim, Novak, Rowe are outside the Veridian area of service. Clarington in the past year has received a total of $1.884 million that ultimately comes out of hydro payments payments by hydro users in Orono, Newcastle and Bowmanville. This very well could have been directed back in a rate reduction to the hydro users in the three centres in Clarington. For those 12,000 customers it averages out at $157.00 per customer. Never has there been an open public debate in Clarington concerning hydro supply. It has been behind closed doors. It's time for an open council. It's time for a major change. , And What has happened to the $ 1.884 million? It sits in a special account drawing interest. It is a matter of principle and fairness. You don't rob Peter to pay Paul and no matter how you look at it, that . is what is happening. ' " ^ Letters to the Editor J To the Editor; Re: Veridian Amalgamation Benefits Clarington Electricity Customers In Clarington, the municipal municipal election has generated some interesting dialogue on the decision of the Municipality of Clarington to create Veridian and this utility's utility's recent rate increase requests. Last year, the municipalities municipalities of Ajax, Pickering and Clarington joined forces to amalgamate their hydro-electric hydro-electric commissions. The Municipality is a shareholder of Veridian Corporation which is the distribution utility utility that now serves the urban areas of Bowmanville, Newcastle and Orono. In exchange for the assets of Clarington Hydro, the Municipality of Clarington now owns 15.7% of Veridian and will share in 15.7% of the earnings of the utility operations operations in ajl of Pickering, Ajax, Clarington, and recent utility acquisitions of Uxbridge, Brock and Port Hope. Much has been made of the announced rate increases for Veridian. Veridian is planning rate increases that will in part be used to earn returns for the municipal shareholders. But the returns that have been, paid to Veridian shareholders are only a small portion of these recent rate adjustment. requests. There are other major reasons for the rate increases than the return earned for shareholders. Utilities will now pay income taxes to the province. The introduction of these new taxes are required to pay down the massive Ontario Hydro debt left to the province as part of the Hydro restructuring. Utilities will also be obliged to fund development development from electricity rates. These growth related costs were previously paid for by developers, not electricity customers. There will also be significant costs to distribution distribution utilities in changing billing systems so that customers customers can be charged separately separately for the commodity and delivery of the service. Veridian estimates that these costs could be as high as $1 million per year. Had Clarington Hydro not joined with Veridian, they would have shouldered these additional costs on their own. Not an easy thing for a small utility to handle and precisely the reason why so many small municipalities in Ontario have thrown in the towel and sold their utility to Hydro One. True, Veridian is requesting requesting rate increases and that's not typical of what customers in Clarington have experienced. experienced. Since 1993, Clarington Hydro decreased rates for residential customers customers by 7.4%. But with the significant cost now faced with deregulation, even Clarington Hydro on its own would have had no Choice but to also increase rates. Over the next three years, a residential residential customer in Clarington is expected to be impacted by just over 4% a year from the Veridian requested rate increase. Veridian estimates that had Clarington Hydro remained on its own, the comparable increase would have been 6% a year for three years. There are other benefits to the Veridian merger. Clarington now benefits from the electric system in Clarington being monitored 24 hours a day. This control feature will decrease response time to power interruptions interruptions within the community. community. Veridian has dedicated construction crews for distribution distribution line rebuilding. The distribution lines rebuilding job, in the south end of Bowmanville is a recent example/ of Veridian's construction construction efforts. The merger of Veridian has already achieved efficiencies beyond original expectations. The municipalities of Clarington, Ajax and Pickering put together a formula formula that would retain local ownership of their electric utilities. Veridian is a success success story that will stand the test of time. . George Van Dyk Vice Chair, Veridian ■ E. Coll Contamination In Our Community In 1998, we In Garden Hill and surrounding communities, communities, organized Ganaraska Grassroots, a community voL unteer organization, to look at the degradation of the Garden Hill Pond in its' hamlet. hamlet. The pond, which is also situated in the Oak Ridges Moraine where the water should never be anything other than pristine, started to show signs of trouble as early as the mid 70's. It has degraded to the point where on many occasions, a foul stench has to be endured by area residents. In the late 70's, early 80's, the Garden Hill Pond would see many visitors from afar as well as area residents. This was very good for local businesses and cottage industries, but now, local businesses have suffered, and we've lost our only area of water recreation and fish habitat. In 1998, Ganaraska Grassroots compiled historical historical data and presented copies to the Ganaraska Conservation Authority, HKPR Health Unit and MP Christine Stewart. In 1999, with money raised from private donations, donations, GG volunteers did testing testing of the pond and its tributaries, tributaries, which was analyzed by Mr. Gary Palmateer, who is handling the Walkerton Tragedy. This "Spéciation Testing" showed that the E. ooli contamination - was present present at 39 times, 30 times, 5 times, and 3.1 times, over the allowable limit, as well as a potent bacteria called Ps. aeurigonosa at 68 times over the limit. Mr. Palmateer's conclusions were that thé contamination were of both human and animal origin. In January, copies of his report were sent -to the Ganaraska Region Conservation Authority, the HKPR District Health Unit, The Ministries of Environment and Natural Resources. The Health Unit then sent the report to the Continued on page 11