Concerns remain as Hydro One identifies a preferred corridor for the St. Thomas EV battery plant

Hydro One held a public input session after identifying a preferred route for the St. Thomas Line. Nov. 13, 2024. (Gerry Dewan/CTV News London)

Hydro One has identified a preferred route for a transmission corridor to supply the Volkswagen electric vehicle battery plant in St. Thomas, Ont.

While the corridor now appears inevitable, officials are continuing to take feedback on the plan.

The first of two public-input sessions was held at the Belmont Arena and Community Centre on Wednesday evening.

A second will take place Thursday in St. Anne’s Parish Centre in St. Thomas.

In February, similar sessions were held with three proposed routes on the table, now there is only one.

Hydro One Vice President of Portfolio Management Kathleen McCorriston told CTV News, "We've gone through a data-driven process, through the environmental assessment process, to select the preferred route. The preferred route that we have selected has scored the best in all of the different criteria."

The proposed St. Thomas line will travel 18 kilometers from existing power lines running just south of Highway 401 to the PowerCo Canada electric vehicle (EV) battery cell plant on the east edge of St. Thomas.

The plant will be the largest manufacturing facility in Canada and the biggest EV battery plant in North America. Still, the proposed corridor raises concerns for some, including many farmers.

Many attending the Belmont session said they felt reassured that the plan was reasonable and well thought out. Others continue to have concerns about impacts on birds and other wildlife, and about broader environmental impacts.

The St. Thomas line will run from just north of Highway 401 to the eastern edge of the city. (Source: Hydro One)"It's trying to get the best of a bad deal for the farmers who are going to have the towers on their property," said Crispin Colvin.

Colvin is a regional director with the Ontario Federation of Agriculture and was one of a number of OFA representatives at the meeting who were advocating on behalf of farmers.

"It's important that we make sure that the farmers and the landowners are adequately compensated for the land. That is, they don't lose it for just for a little while. They lose it for hundreds of years because right of ways wants to establish, do not go away," he said.

Colvin said famers who will host the towers will need to be property compensated and that there’s an understanding about rights-of-access to the property, “That they have rights to their land, that people can't just come on the land — whether it's hydro or anybody else for that matter, assuming that they have the right to be there.”

But Colvin doesn’t discount the need to provide power to the EV battery plant, “We all need the power — St. Thomas needs it, Volkswagen needs it, and the farms need it.”

Some at the meeting said that while the towers won't be on their property, they will have an impact on them.

One man, who didn't want to be identified, told CTV News that he's spent years renovating an old schoolhouse, opening it up for a view of the countryside. Now that view will include the towers and power lines.

Still, McCorriston says the proposed corridor is the least problematic, "We feel as if it's mitigated the most impact to landowners and, as a result of this line, no one has to leave their home."

The target for completion of the 230-kilovolt, double-circuit St. Thomas Line is in 2027.

Those connected with the PowerCo plant say facility is projected to generate up to 3,000 on-site jobs and as many as 30,000 indirect jobs.