U.S. firm continues to push bid for power plant .................................
JENNIFER LEWINGTON
CITY HALL BUREAU CHIEF
A big U.S. utility that lost a bid to build a power plant on Toronto's waterfront is keeping up the fight.
"We have no choice but to appeal to the court of public opinion," said Bill Leedy, executive director of new product development for Constellation Energy, of Baltimore, Md.
But Constellation is waging its public-relations campaign without active help from either its partner, Toronto Hydro, or the Toronto agency with land in the Port Lands.
Mr. Leedy said there are several reasons to press the case for his company's project, which he describes as "very much alive."
First, he said, he is gratified by opposition among some local residents (and Mayor David Miller) to the bid from Portlands Energy Centre, selected last month by the Ontario government. He added that he hopes the issue could influence the March 30 by-election in Toronto-Danforth riding.
Second, Mr. Leedy promised to release new information shortly to reverse the government's decision.
In February, Ontario Energy Minister Donna Cansfield gave the green light to Portlands, a joint venture of Transcanada Energy Corp. and Ontario Power Generation. The venture already has environmental approval and now needs only a few final documents to be able to locate a 550-megawatt gas-fired electricity plant in the port lands, east of the OPG-owned, mothballed Hearn generating station on Unwin Avenue, near the outer harbour.
With new power supply, the government hopes to avoid threatened electricity blackouts in 2008.
The smaller-scale Constellation-Toronto Hydro project assumes stepped-up conservation measures worth 200 megawatts of power in the first two years and construction of 291 megawatts of gas-fired electricity from a new plant inside the Hearn.
Developer Mario Cortelucci's Studios of America has a long-term lease on the Hearn that includes a prohibition against power generation. Mr. Leedy's company has a "legally binding agreement" to take over the lease, but would need the province to lift the ban.
Toronto Hydro spokesman Blair Peberdy said his utility assumes Portlands is proceeding as announced.
"The minister's directive still stands and there has been no indication to us that will change," he said.
And the city's Toronto Economic Development Corp., while supportive of the Constellation-Toronto Hydro bid, is not promoting it, president Jeff Steiner said. Tedco owns land just west of the Hearn plant, near existing transmission wires.
"As a last resort," he said, his agency would make available lands for a power plant in the Port Lands if either Portlands or the Constellation-Hydro bids dropped off the table. |
