Terrace Standard, February 4, 2010
THE B.C TRANSMISSION Corporation has spent just over $6.5 million to prepare the plan to build a power line north of here for an environmental review.
It comes from a $10 million budget provided by the province in Sept. 2008 for the 335km long Northwest Transmission Line.
Information provided by the corporation indicates that $297,000 has been spent on project management, $3.136 million on environmental studies in preparation for the environmental review, $260,000 on preliminary engineering and route selection and $21,300 on determining what private properties might be affected.
The corporation also spent $2.825 million on payments to First Nations groups so they could take part in talks concerning the power line, on studies to determine traditional aboriginal use of lands and on related costs.
The corporation had also spent several million dollars when the provincial government first announced in mid-2007 it would build the line.
But work connected with the line was cancelled in late 2007 when the provincial government's private partner of the day, NovaGold Resources, halted work on its Galore Creek copper and gold property because of increasing costs.
The 2008 revival of the plan followed a year's worth of intensive lobbying by mining companies and northwest governments to at least convince the provincial government to get the project plan ready for an environmental review.
