By Ruby Pratka
Local Journalism Initiative
Hydro-Québec officials have decided to continue moving forward with plans to build a new substation in a rural area straddling the boundaries of Brome Lake, Brome village and Sutton, rejecting a proposal championed by Sutton Mayor Robert Benoit which proponents say would have avoided the need for a new structure.
Hydro-Québec representatives held a closed-door meeting with elected officials and representatives of the MRC Brome-Missisquoi and the Union des producteurs agricoles farmers’ union on July 11 in Bromont to explain their decision and chart a way forward.
Maxime Lajoie, the director of integrated design and asset management at Hydro-Québec, represented the public utility at the meeting. “We’ve had a lot of outages in the past few years, and the existing network has reached the end of its useful life,” he told the BCN. “It’s time to rebuild it… while responding to the needs of a growing population. We looked at a number of different scenarios, including the one proposed by the mayor of Sutton.”
Hydro-Québec currently plans to construct a 120kV substation and transmission line in or near Brome and dismantle existing substations in Sutton, Knowlton and Eastman. The alternative proposal developed by Benoit and consulting engineer Daniel Vaillant would enlarge the four substations in Sutton, Knowlton, Cowansville and Stukely; it would replace existing 49kV transmission lines in the area with 69kV lines, which Benoit and Vaillant argue would have less impact on the landscape than the 120kV lines proposed by Hydro-Québec.
In a presentation given at the meeting and later partially shared with the BCN, Hydro-Québec conceded that the pylons in the Sutton proposal would have less impact on the landscape than those currently planned, but said other aspects of the proposal would have a larger environmental impact.
For example, according to the presentation, the Sutton proposal would require the construction of around 440 “new structures,” compared to 50 to 60 for the current plan, and the acquisition of at least 107.5 km3 of land, compared to 62.5 km3 for the current plan. Hydro-Québec also argued that the 69kV network would be operating at 90 per cent capacity as soon as it was built, meaning that one or two additional substations would likely have to be built in the area within 20 years. Lajoie also said the Sutton proposal would involve making agreements with more than 400 private landowners, compared to 50 for the current 120kV plan.”
For those reasons, he said, “we are going with the 120kV scenario, and our goal is to work with the community [to implement it].”
“The big issues are land use and the landscape, and we understand that very well,” Lajoie said. “For the next steps, we want to go see the population to find the best means to reduce the impact of the transmission lines on the visual aspect. We will do consultation and simulation [to] determine the route the lines will follow, and keep working with the community to do that.”
Cowansville Mayor Sylvie Beauregard, who attended the meeting, said it was “interesting” to hear Hydro-Québec’s analysis of the two proposals.
“I was kind of expecting [that Hydro-Québec would choose the 120kV option], because in spring there were already discussions about it, but they said they needed to analyze it further,” she said, praising Hydro-Québec’s “openness.”
Beauregard said her biggest concern was the route the transmission line would follow through Cowansville, particularly in light of a proposed new hotel to be built on formerly city-owned land. “We can’t put [the new hotel] at risk … and we have to respect our residential and corporate citizens.” She said she expected to know more about the proposed transmission line route sometime this fall, at the earliest. “We’ll let Hydro continue their evaluation and see what they propose.”
She said the power station was “a necessary project, but no one wants it in their backyard.”
“We have to work together to find a solution with the least negative impact,” she said. “A lot of people were mobilized behind [the Sutton proposal]. People will be disappointed, worried and angry. How can we get all those people behind a positive project? Maybe something positive will come out of this.”
Benoit told the BCN on Monday that he wanted to wait for additional documentation from Hydro-Québec before commenting.
Lajoie said Hydro-Québec hopes to have an “optimized scenario” for the construction of the new substation by the beginning of next year, and start construction in 2027.