---

In The Telegram’s July 26 article, “Protesters jumping the gun: Fortis,” Fortis president Stanley Marshall gets it wrong when he accuses environmentalists of not knowing the facts and being closed-minded about his company’s proposed hydro dam in Belize.

Opposition to the Chalillo dam has developed after careful scrutiny of the proponents’ feasibility study and environmental impact assessments, as well as years of independent research in the Macal watershed.

The proponents’ own studies confirm that this nine-megawatt dam will wipe out critical and irreplaceable habitat for rare and endangered wildlife — an act which would be illegal in the United States and in parts of Canada.

To protect this river valley, conservation groups sought advice from independent economists and discovered two things: first, that the $28-million dam would be an expensive and unreliable power provider; and second, that Belize Electricity, which is majority-owned by Fortis, is denying consumers access to better and cheaper generating options.

One need only look at the performance of an existing hydro dam on the Macal River, further downstream of the Chalillo site, to know what to expect from Chalillo. That dam is crippled by water shortages during the five-month dry season, which means that Belize Electricity has to pay for alternative power when the dam can’t produce.

This helps explain why Belize consumers are currently paying two to three times more for their electricity than their neighbours in Mexico and Guatemala, where high-efficiency gas turbines are the power source of choice.

Furthermore, cogeneration using sugar and citrus waste byproducts is another attractive option for Belize’s largest power consumers.

The only reason Chalillo appears viable at this stage is because Belize Electricity has the monopoly power to recover the dam’s uncompetitive costs from its captive ratepayers.

With guaranteed revenues and no competitors, it’s Fortis Inc. that is closed-minded about Belize’s electricity options.

Grainne Ryder, policy director,
Probe International
Toronto, Ont.