POWER PROGRAM PULLS PLUG ON GROW-OPS

Surrey Fire Department Reports Success With Electrical Inspection of
Certain Homes

When the City of Surrey first launched a program to have the fire
department inspect homes using suspicious amounts of power, some
wondered if it was worth the effort.

Wonder no more.

"It's working," Chief Len Garis says.

Surrey's crackdown on pot grow-ops through its Electrical Fire Safety
Inspection program has shut down a substantial number of illicit
operations and led to a drop in the number of house fires in the
city, according to a report for city council from Chief Garis.

The report shows that between July 27, 2006 and June 25, 2007, 65 per
cent of places inspected were no longer attracting the attention of
the program (the operation may have shut down or the home is no
longer using suspicious amounts of power).

Marijuana growers often tamper with electrical equipment in houses
they either own or rent to bypass the system in order to tap into
free electricity for their marijuana cultivation.

This tampering frequently leads to fires due to improperly installed
homemade systems, which results in tripping, shock and fire hazards.

Surrey's program, which is now being copied by other cities, was
launched in response to the high number of fires caused by marijuana
growers in the city.

In partnership with BC Hydro, the EFSI initiative allows electrical
inspections of houses that are consuming higher than normal levels of
electricity.

The team consists of one electrical inspector, one firefighter and
two police officers.

The report shows that in 2003, pot grow operation-related fires had
climbed to about 15 per cent per year, accounting for 8.7 per cent of
all residential fires.

In 2006, the first full year of the EFSI program, the number of fires
sparked by grow-ops dropped to 3.7 per cent -- or nine fires, which
was a 40 per cent decrease from the previous year.

In Surrey, the data reveals that the chances of a grow operation
catching on fire was one in 22 -- or 24 times more likely to catch on
fire than other houses in the city.

In January of 2007, the Surrey EFSI team was expanded and inspected
1,000 addresses obtained from Hydro that meet the criteria of
unusually high consumption.

Inspections conducted during the first half of 2007 identified
electrical deficiencies in 86 per cent of the homes inspected, or
nearly nine of out every 10 places inspected.

Mayor Dianne Watts says Surrey was the first to have the EFSI
inspection teams and cities in the region and across Canada have
shown an interest in copying the successful program.

Watts noted the program also protects prospective homebuyers.

The tampered houses are red-flagged on the tax roll and can't be sold
or rented without the prospective client's knowledge of its history.
The hydroponic method used by pot growers leads to mould problems in
the houses.

"So if someone's buying a house they know it was a grow-op," she said.