NEW GROW OP CAMPAIGN

A new Surrey campaign that used power consumption rates to uncover
grow ops has located 30 so far.

Fire chief Len Garis said every last one of the suspected residences
visited by a team of Surrey fire and municipal inspectors (with
Surrey RCMP support) during the first weeks of the new campaign
turned out to have evidence of grow op activity and often unsafe wiring.

"We found two outside electrical meters that were absolutely fried,"
Garis said Monday.

The first team started work in mid-January.

Garis said a second team of inspectors has been finishing its
training and will begin work next week, boosting the number of
inspections possible.

"We hope to average 100 a month."

The fire department believes there are at least 1,100 Surrey
residences that could conceal grow ops because they have unusual or
excessive consumption patterns.

Under the Electrical Fire Safety Initiative (EFSI), fire crews with
municipal electrical inspectors issue inspection notices on homes
suspected of having grow operations.

If the homeowner doesn't allow an inspection within 48 hours, the
power is cut off.

A recently enacted law gives municipalities the power to demand
electrical consumption records from "an electricity distributor" such
as B.C. Hydro.

Homes with unusual electrical consumption records are given written
notice that an inspection will be carried out and owners or renters
are required by law to allow a safety inspection.

A pilot program in Surrey that ran between March and June of 2005,
that used a small five-person team of two officers, two firefighters
and an electrical inspector uncovered 119 grow ops in 90 days.

That worked out to 94 per cent of the 126 houses with unusual or
excessive power consumption records looked at by the EFSI team. Each
case was processed in about four hours.

According to RCMP estimates, there are 20,000 grow ops in B.C. which
generate $7 billion in illegal revenues.