SASKATOON – Saskat-chewan is partially replacing the rural underground distribution program for power lines.
A new program will pay for three-quarters of the cost of burying power lines that run through farmers’ yards and surrounding buildings.
Farmers will have to pay the remaining 25 percent. Sask-Power estimates the average cost of burying a farmyard line at $900 for the farmer, and $2,600 for the utility.
The original program, which was systematically burying all 14,000 volt lines in rural Sask-atchewan, was scrapped last year by a government trying to control spending and debt at the crown corporation.
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federal government proposed several months ago to increase the compensation rate from 80 to 90 per cent and double the maximum payment from $3 million to $6 million
The several million dollars spent this year on the new program is vastly less than the $25 million spent on the program each year.
But the new program is also less ambitious. Only lines immediately surrounding a farmyard are affected. SaskPower official Terry Meier said the original plan was a total rebuilding program, while the new program is more selective.
When the original plan was cancelled, some farm groups and politicians complained that rural Saskatchewan was being unfairly targeted for cuts.
The cut was announced at the same time that SaskPower announced it was raising farm power rates twice as much as it was boosting city rates.
