10/26/2009 Power project clears hurdle Power project clears hurdle BY DINA O'MEARA, CALGARY HERALD; WITH FILES FROM LISA SCHMIDT, CALGARY HERALD OCTOBER 24, 2009 Three southern Alberta landowners have lost a bid to bring a fight against a major international power transmission line to the Supreme Court. Tonbridge Power Inc., the developer of the $213-million Montana-Alberta Tie Line, or MATL, said Friday that Canada's highest court has decided against hearing an appeal by the landowners. "We're excited about getting on with the development of this project," said Bob Williams, with Calgary- based MATL, a subsidiary of Tonbridge. "We hope to start construction in December, with commerciality by the beginning of 2011." With the last legal issue now resolved, the merchant transmission developer said construction work on the 230-kilovolt line will begin shortly on both sides of the border, but noted agreements still need to be signed with the bulk of 360 landowners on the route. A number of the Alberta landowners were holding back from discussions with MATL until the top court decision was handed down, Williams said. "Now it's time to sit down and work through the issues," he said. "Our goal is to negotiate 100 per cent of the agreements." The Alberta Surface Rights Board can order a landowner to allow access to his or her land for development, and set the level of compensation, but MATL hopes to avoid that process. In May, the Alberta Court of Appeal ruled against the landowners, saying the province's energy regulator did adequately assess the project with respect to the public interest. Landowners had argued the 346-kilometre line from Lethbridge to Great Falls, Mont., will affect their operations and property values. In court, they said the line is not in the public interest and benefits will accrue to Tonbridge, a private developer. The transmission line will hook up to 300 megawatts of wind power from Montana to the more lucrative Alberta electricity market, and is fully contracted into Canada by three developers. There has been little interest in exporting Alberta power south into the much smaller, equally landlocked state, Williams said. The company plans to build a new substation northeast of Lethbridge, where it will tie into the existing 240-kV AltaLink line and feed into the provincial power pool. "The reinforcement of the transmission system in southern Alberta may well be important to our customers," he said, "but as we just provide the transportation to the Lethbridge area, it is the calgaryherald.com/story_print.html?id=… 1/2 10/26/2009 Power project clears hurdle responsibility of customers with contracted capacity to make whatever arrangement they need to get their energy to their end customer." Montana wind developers will have to secure import permits and pay import tariffs before flowing power into Alberta. [email protected] © Copyright (c) The Calgary Herald calgaryherald.com/story_print.html?id=… 2/2.