Williams Lake City Council simply isn’t happy with the current situation regarding Atlantic Power’s future.
This, after an unfavourable update provided to Council yesterday evening, as the Williams Lake power plant tries to reach a middle ground with BC Hydro to keep its doors open.
Mayor Surinderpal Rathor says an agreement hasn’t been met, due to BC Hydro being uncooperative.
“This is the only biomass plant in BC. It doesn’t make sense to not support the cleaner energy when the Provincial Government is promoting clean energy, and buying coal supported energy from Alberta. It doesn’t make sense to me.” says Rathor.
“Why wouldn’t they do that? Everybody’s on board. I can’t see why they will not listen to our request and not help us.”
Rathor says he’s surprised with how BC Hydro is approaching this situation, as the City has supported their initiatives, and helped them any way they could.
As for Council’s next steps, they will wait over the next couple days for something to be done, but if that doesn’t happen, they plan to bring the delegation to Premier David Eby’s office.
Rathor recalled the Premier publicly saying he doesn’t want to see the plant go down, and he wants to hold Eby to that.
Atlantic Power has until October 15th to rescind their notice, which was provided back in February to cease operations in January 2025, affecting over 28 direct jobs.
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