Manitoba Hydro hosted an open house in Sage Creek on Monday evening to address residents’ concerns over a proposed expansion in the area.
An existing row of hydro towers runs through Sage Creek. Manitoba Hydro wants to add two more rows directly to the east of the existing towers.
“They’re strengthening the power outlet by 5 times, from what’s there right now. We were never made aware of the fact that that was in the plans,” says resident Martin Funk.
Other residents echoed Funk, saying that the expansion came as a surprise. The development company behind the Sage Creek community says it didn’t know about the project either.
“The new plan that we’re seeing here tonight was I think unveiled this summer. And we became aware of it as everyone else had,” says Eric Vogan with Qualico.
Manitoba Hydro says the project is necessary to address the growing needs of the province, and that it shouldn’t come as a surprise.
“We’re proposing to put two transmission lines down the existing corridor where there’s one now, on land that Manitoba Hydro has owned for forty years. It’s been a Manitoba Hydro planned transmission corridor,” says Bill Henderson with Manitoba Hydro.
Residents were also concerned about the potential health effects of the power lines. Nicolle Lewis is building a house in Sage Creek. She’s worried that the community’s new school will back right on to the corridor.
“It’s about our health and our kids health. So that’s my concern. Having a son I want him and his peers to be safe in school,” Lewis says.
Manitoba Hydro handed out pamphlets on power line exposure from Health Canada at the meeting. They say the majority of existing scientific research does not link power line corridors to cancer, but support more research on the subject.
“What we’re doing is encouraging people to take a look at this information and come to understand it and make up their own minds,” Henderson says.
