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7 · Friday, March 26, 2010 OAKVILLE BEAVER · www.oakvillebeaver.com Guest Column Mayor explains disappointment with OPA choice Editor's Note: The following was filed for publication with The Oakville Beaver by Mayor Rob Burton in response to a recent item published in the Toronto media. The Ontario Power Authority (OPA) doesn't understand why so many of us are disappointed with the way it conducted its process to select TransCanada's site in Oakville for the southwest GTA power plant. Here's why: After claiming at a public meeting that there was no time to accept suggestions from the public for changes to the draft request for proposal (RFP), the OPA made several changes to the RFP, without public consultation, two months after it was issued. The most notable change was to back date the RFP condition about municipal approvals to before the original RFP was even released. This meant the OPA chose to ignore the risk that Oakville's interim control bylaw would lead to rules that could make the TransCanada project ineligible for municipal approval. In effect, the OPA gave TransCanada RFP winning not even comply with existing municipal zoning bylaws, yet the OPA gave it points for compliance. How did this choice by the OPA meet the OPA's duty to the public to manage the risk of failure of the RFP? The OPA should revoke immediately its contract award to TransCanada. An RFP process of integrity would demand no less. The OPA appears to me to be broken and unable to be fixed. It continues to deny any problem with its conduct, but there are questions that will not go away. Why is the OPA issuing contracts under a power supply plan that has not been approved by the Ontario Energy Board? Why is the OPA building generation, the need for which they can't show as demand continues to lag supply severely, with the cost going on everyone's electricity bills? Who besides the OPA chair's construction company benefits? Why won't they make public their analysis of the bids so we could have full public transparency? Can't they at least tell how each ranked on nonprice factors? Why does the OPA have a "blind spot" about the site's proximity to homes and schools? The aerial photo of the site that the OPA hands out frames out the surrounding neighbourhood, just as the OPA's process framed them out, too. In a newspaper article defending itself on March 8, the OPA said that "emission standards at the plant will be 80 per cent stricter than what the Ministry of the Environment requires." The OPA website claims that "the new power plant meet emissions standards that are 70% stricter than what the Ontario Ministry of the Environment requires." Which number is it? Either way, why should anyone be happy with a plant that will be dirtier than 103 of the last plants licensed in the U.S. under George Bush? At a public meeting, I complained about the draft RFP's refusal to require state-of-the-art pollution controls for the project and the OPA said, in front of 150 people, "The OPA is not in the business of protecting the environment." In other jurisdictions, the public and the environment are respected and protected. California and Connecticut have power plant siting authorities that manage to get it right. Complete applications, in California, are approved within 12 months. The community of Middletown, Connecticut embraced ­ and still embraces ­ having its plant because the authorities followed a sound process that involved and protected the public and the environment. In May 2008, Michael Wyman of the University of Toronto Faculty of Law penned a piece in the Financial Post titled "Get rid of the OPA." His advice still looks good to me. More gas-fired power plants are going to be built by the OPA across Ontario. Ontario should be capable of better public processes and better behaviour by its public agencies. As it is, the OPA has performed at a level lower than the Bush league. When the OPA comes to your neighbourhood, I hope you're prepared for what you're going to go through if the OPA can't be fixed. Mayor Rob Burton points for which they were not entitled. I call this "putting the OPA's thumb on the scale." Even worse, TransCanada turned around and applied for permission to build on more of the site than existing municipal laws permit and closer to the GO line. That application was refused on March 9 by Oakville's Committee of Adjustment. Now it is clear the TransCanada proposal did savings! $ 0 OFF 1 EE 905-825-Bffer ends April 11, 2010 O . vice Road W 1 North Ser 48 (2337) $ h of One Batc eer Wine ory B u B Yo Made 25 OFF 905-825ils.Bffer ends April 11, 2010 O ta North Service Rd. e Road W. 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