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Hydro substation plan panned by residents
St. Lazare homeowners question location of facility
Kristina Edson
The Gazette
Thursday, September 4, 2008
Residents met with town and Hydro officials last week to go over plans.
Nancy Stokes feels badly that her neighbours will soon have to look out at a $29.7-million Hydro-Québec electrical substation instead of the open fields and trees that now boarder their St. Lazare property.
Also, Stokes is worried that she’ll also see and hear the 120-25 kV substation that is scheduled to begin construction on the east side of Bedard Ave. near the hydro servitude between Ste. Elizabeth and St. Louis Sts. later this month if all government approval is granted.
“We’re about 700 metres away (from the site,)” said Stokes’ husband Walter Makowski, who thinks Hydro should have chosen to build its new post next to the highway rather than adjacent to residential neighbourhoods.
“I just don’t understand why it has to be anywhere near a residential area,” he said.
The substation is expected to route electricity that will power close to 80 per cent of St. Lazare, Hudson, and parts of Vaudreuil-Dorion. It should be operational by November 2009, Hydro-Québec officials say.
The energy giant hosted a public information meeting in St. Lazare last week attended by Stokes and Makowski, as well as a handful of residents.
A woman who did not want her name used said her farmette, complete with a small lake, will look out onto the proposed 200-square-metre facility.
Her questions during the meeting centred on Hydro’s plans to erect a 1.83-metre security fence around the installation.
Hydro is in the process of purchasing 6.5 hectares of land from three private landowners, as well as the municipality.
The substation will be built on three hectares, while the remaining area will be used as a wooded buffer zone to cut down on sight and noise irritations.
Hydro says it will install three transformers at the site, with the possibility of adding a fourth in about 15 years.
The utility will also build an access road to the station.
Hydro says the MRC’s population, which it says exceeds 114,000, has been served thus far by substations in Île Perrot, Vaudreuil-Dorion, Rigaud and St. Polycarpe.
That is no longer enough, they say, adding that the Dorion substation has been operating at full capacity for sometime now.
“For sure we would have problems in the next couple of years,” said Hydro public relations agent Hugo Mimee, who explained to Makowski that the St. Lazare site was chosen for “economic, environmental and technical reasons.”
Once built, the substation will be linked to the Dorion Rigaud 120 kv line that has been in place since the 1960s.
Though Hydro-Québec will not host additional information sessions, it says a toll free information line will remain in use. Also, about 300 residents living closest to the site will soon be mailed information brochures. To receive a brochure or ask questions, call 877-653-1139.