STOLEN HYDRO A GROWING CONCERN

In every single marijuana grow operation busted in Maple Ridge and
Pitt Meadows during the past few months, police have found the plants
were being grown by lights and other equipment powered by stolen
electricity.

While it's impossible to calculate how much juice is being stolen
locally to grow pot, a spokesperson for the public utility says the
problem has been steadily rising over the last few years.

"It's certainly a growing concern, no pun intended," said Elisha
Moreno, Monday.

Last year, BC Hydro billed out $2.2 million to customers stealing
electricity to keep their illegal crops budding before being busted.

Of that money, the public utility recouped around $1.8 million, but
the true costs associated with theft of electricity is far higher,
with some estimates predicting as much as $100 million worth of power
is being stolen each year.

"There's ones out there we don't know about," Moreno
said.

Lots more.

At any given time, the Ridge Meadows RCMP say they have tips pointing
to well over 100 grow ops and in the most recent busts over the last
month, which saw nine raids, electrical bypasses were found in all the
homes.

Moreno says Hydro does what it can to monitor the theft of electricity
and employs nine investigators throughout the province whose job it is
to sniff out stolen electricity.

"What we're most interested in is the electrical theft," she said,
adding, Hydro monitors for unusual "spikes" in electrical use coming
from homes and trains meter readers to be on the lookout for tampered
connection boxes or unusual activity.

But because Hydro has no law enforcement authority, Moreno says that
if someone is caught stealing electricity, as soon as their bill is
paid in full, power to the home will be restored and it's up to the
police to bring criminal charges.

"We don't have authority to do that," she said.

The largest single bill given to a homeowner for stealing electricity
was $40,000.

BC Hydro, says Moreno, is also concerned about the rising costs of
repairing connections to homes and other equipment damaged or ruined
by grow ops. She says it costs $1,500 every time a transformer blows
because too much electricity is being passed through it to power a
grow op which usually requires more power than a residential home is
rated to handle through its Hydro hook-up.

"(Those costs) are definitely increasing...little by little every
year," she says.