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Parkland resident wants geothermal utility changes

One of the residents living in the Parkland subdivision in Gibsons is, once again, urging council to take action on the Town-owned geothermal energy utility that homes in the first phases of the subdivision were required to connect to.
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One of the residents living in the Parkland subdivision in Gibsons is, once again, urging council to take action on the Town-owned geothermal energy utility that homes in the first phases of the subdivision were required to connect to.

The Gibsons District Energy Utility (GDEU) suffered a serious breakdown during the winter of 2015-16, which led to an expensive retrofit to add gas boilers to supplement the geothermal exchangers.

It also prompted a review of the system, and a decision to exempt Phase 3 of the subdivision from the requirement to connect “until operational improvements could be made to the system.” Council also voted last September to approve a similar exemption for Phase 4.

David Hayward is one of the homeowners who was impacted by that first breakdown in the system and has been actively lobbying for changes.

“When it got put in, it was a good idea and it may not be now,” Hayward told council on Nov. 5. “Bottom line is, there’s a lot of people who moved in there because it was a green geothermal system and we’re not getting that.”

Hayward said as far as he’s concerned the Town now has four options:

• Install additional heat exchanger modules and invest in bringing the system up to the standard it was originally supposed to achieve for at least 58 of the homes in the first two phases.

• Leave the GDEU system as it is now, in which case Hayward said the Town should withdraw the covenant requiring homes to hook into the GDEU.

• Reduce the scale of the service to just 38 homes while allowing 20 to withdraw from the covenant and install different heating systems with compensation for the costs.

• Shut down the GDEU entirely and reimburse all the homeowners currently on the system for the cost of switching to gas or electric heat.

Hayward also criticized the Town for how it’s been communicating with residents since the system breakdown three years ago. “We haven’t ever had consultation on what we want as people and what would serve us best,” Hayward said.

Director of infrastructure services Dave Newman said work on a new business plan for the utility is continuing, and an update on the system was being sent to residents.

He said the business plan should be going forward to council in December.