Delegates oppose smart meters
Delegates at the Union of BC Municipalities convention in Vancouver voted in favour of a moratorium on BC Hydro smart meters. The vote was 55 per cent in favour and 45 against.
Rich Coleman, BC’s minister of energy, has said the government will proceed with the billion-dollar program.
The meters measure residents’ power consumption and then use wireless signals to send the data back to BC Hydro.
Some opponents fear the units will release too much radiation but Hydro says living next to a smart meter for 20 years would expose a resident to the same level of radiation as a 30-minute cell phone call.
The utility says the new technology will make the province’s energy grid more efficient, sustainable and better able to respond to outages.
Tickets run out
BC Ferries is discontinuing the sale of CirclePac tickets that offered a discount when riders travelled the circle route from Horseshoe Bay to the Sunshine Coast, down Vancouver Island and back to the Lower Mainland within a 30-day period. The tickets are being discontinued because of low sales. SailPasses, which were single-priced tickets for travelling within a set period of time, are also being discontinued.
Setting it straight
An article last week incorrectly reported that Dr. Pawel Makarewicz has resigned from his position of medical director and chief of surgery at Powell River General Hospital. Makarewicz is resigning as medical director once a replacement is found but he will remain chief of surgery.
