Heather Wright/The Independent

A Goderich lawyer is warning homes in the path of Hydro One’s Longwood to Lakeshore powerline project will likely be moved or destroyed.

Quinn Ross, who has been working with landowners affected by Hydro One power line projects for 20 years, says the company’s assurances it will make “micro adjustments” for landowners ring hollow.

Hydro One has chosen a route which cuts through Lambton’s most southerly municipality – Dawn-Euphemia – and runs right over top of at least three homes and barns and passes within metres of at least four more. The line also cuts through miles of farmland.

Hydro One says the route “involves the least potential disruption to species at risk and their habitats as well as the least vegetation removal, including trees.”

Sonny Karunakaran, Hydro One’s Vice President, Strategic Projects and Partnerships, told The Independent that the utility “looks at how we locate towers to deviate the line very slightly on their property, such that the house is no longer in an impacted zone. And this gives the landowner a specific choice to be able to decide if they would like the adjustment made on their property, which would allow them to continue to remain in their dwelling.”

But Ross says that’s far from the normal. He says there are big problems with the way Hydro One sets up power lines. “The unilateral and unrequested seizing of land that’s been in their family for 100 years is probably a good starting point,” he says.

“It really is about the fact that both the process for the project through the OEB as well as the Expropriation Act just doesn’t take into consideration the reality of farming; just the way the compensation works, the way that you can seek route line adjustments, how you engage with the expropriating authority, the utility is just, it’s just broken and really completely disconnected from the reality farmers face every day.”

Even if farmers can reach what they consider an equitable agreement on compensation, they’re dealing issues with Hydro One’s contractors accessing their land. “That leads to soil compaction. It leads to crushed tiles. It causes damage to existing crops,”

Ross says. “Then there’s just the interference with the work that farmers do…the really great days where you want to get out and spray or you’re going to cultivate … are the same days that the contractor is going to want to take advantage of the weather in order to start doing whatever it is they’re doing.”

Ross says Hydro One often presents standard agreements for access but farmers should be negotiating exactly what they want, right down to making sure any contractors close gates they use. “Absent some form of negotiation, the agreements just really do allow for them to do what they need, when they need, however they want to,” he says. And as for those who have a power line slated to go over the house, Ross says “micro adjustments are not going to save you… They must buy you out for health reasons.”

Ross adds negotiating a fair price for your home with Hydro One is challenging, but you should accept their offer. It’s far cheaper, he says, for the company to meet the homeowner’s demands than to try to settle the issues in court.

Ross, who already represents a number of landowners in the Longwood to Lakeshore Line project, suggests landowners to take time to process the shock of expropriation before making decisions.

And he says Hydro One prioritizes time over money, meaning that a large group can significantly impact the project’s progress.