Heather Wright/The Independent

Hydro One says it is ready to build the Longwood to Lakeshore transmission line but the Mayor of Dawn-
Euphemia says he has yet to sit down with officials to work out a compensation agreement for the municipality.

Tuesday, Hydro One applied to the Ontario Energy Board for a leave to construct decision on Longwood to Lakeshore Line. Basically, the power company says it is ready to build and wants the OEB’s okay to move forward.

It’s not clear how long that approval will take.

In 2023, Hydro One announced it was looking to build another transmission line from London to Chatham-Kent to meet the rising demand for energy.

The company proposed the new line follows existing power corridors up to 80 per cent of the time, increasing the line’s capacity from 115 kilovolts to 232 kilovolts.

It will deliver some 400 megawatts of energy.

But that new route still causes big problems for property owners along it. 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 said in 2025 that the route “involves the least potential disruption to species at risk and their habitats as well as the least vegetation removal, including trees.”

But neighbours were furious. Some will see towers slash through established woodlots. Others will lose homesteads in their family for generations.

During the consultation process, many suggested “micro changes” to the route to avoid their properties, but Hydro One stuck with its proposal.

Hydro One has been reaching out to landowners with plans to negotiate with each landowner individual offering them cash to relocate.

But Dawn-Euphemia Mayor Al Broad feels for those homeowners.

“The ones that they’re putting the line right over their homes, they know that their homes are coming down… they’re being bought out, and they will be torn down,” he says.

But Broad points out Hydro One should also be treating municipalities fairly in the process. He says the township will be losing the tax revenue from at least three or four homes when they’re demolished, money they would have collected for years.

“We want to make it very clear to Hydro One that the Township of Dawn-Euphemia rate payers do not subsidize the hydro tower line,” he says.

“They should be paying Township of Dawn-Euphemia for the loss of those buildings, because once they’re gone, they’re gone forever. So, that income, that income is gone forever.

“They need to look after our municipality for those three or four homes that we’re going to totally lose the assessment on.”

Broad says he’s raised his concerns a number of times since the project began but so far has yet to meet with Hydro One officials.

A meeting was planned over the winter, but it had to be cancelled because of the weather.

Still, Broad is confident the township will receive some compensation from Hydro One because it has happened before.

The last transmission project which sliced through southern Ontario farmland went through Chatham-Kent as well.

Broad says the municipality was able to negotiate a $10 million Community Investment Fund. He suspects Dawn-Euphemia’s request for funding would take the same form.

“I’ve got a value in my head and I’m hoping that value will transpire,” Broad says.

“There’s going to be a lot of construction in the area, and I know in some other municipalities there were some problems, and we just want to address the problems before they happen.”

Broad hopes discussions, which are being planned now with Hydro One, will include agreements which would see the township repair any damage to its roads caused by the construction of the transmission lines, and then sending the bill to the power company.