Wherever you were in Belize last night, you got to feel the heat of an April evening without the benefit of a fan the consequence of a countrywide blackout. And the cause is again sabotage. BEL's 115 KV line was sabotaged four times over the weekend: two times in the cayo district, two times in the Corozal District. This comes after last week's act of sabotage when 6 lamp posts in an area off the Old Northern Highway were cut down with chain saws. Now, this time, the lamp-posts were burnt down or the lines grounded out. It's already cost BEL over a million dollars and CEO Lyn Young says the outlook is grim.
Lyn Young, Chief Executive Officer - BEL
"Things got worst because two poles near Spanish Lookout were burnt and that caused a small outage on Friday while we had to isolate that area and do some temporary repairs there. Last night somebody connected wires again, they threw a wire across the transmission line from Mexico, and grounded it which knocked out the system. It took us a while to find that but by then the water at Mollejon now, because of all these problems, is very low so we had widespread blackouts last night. Also our gas turbines, the stopping and starting and all jerking on it, all shortages seemed to have caused some problems with the transducers. It's a bad situation because I think for the next 2 weeks we're going to have to have rotation outages while we try to repair all the damaged lines and get the equipment on the GT repaired and in the meantime hopefully we get some rain and try to build back the reservoir in Mollejon. But right now the reservoir is very low so all our emergency power supply from Mollejon is not there any more. The CFE informed us today that they can't get give us any extra energy so we are in a really bad situation and not to mention the damages so far has cost in excess of $1 million so its ugly."
Jules Vasquez,
Are we tethering on the brink of a power crisis?
Lyn Young,
"Yes."
Jules Vasquez,
_From your knowledge of what's been happening, is there a mobilized and coordinated effort at sabotage or is it just random acts of recklessness?
Lyn Young,
"Well the acts that have happened so far show some knowledge of our systems so whoever is doing it obviously understands the system. They know where we are getting our power sources from and they know how to take it down. Grounding a 115 KV line, you got to know what you are doing or you might kill yourself so its obviously somebody, or some people, who understand what's happening out there but we have no idea who it might be. There are ex-employees of BEL of course who maybe are upset and may be a part of this move against the government and may be involved, I don't know."
Jules Vasquez,
Clearly, and I'm putting this myself in their position here without really knowing what they are feeling, but clearly they are feeling that they have to do this, it is in service of the country, because we are in the hands, they must feel, of unreasonable and despotic leaders; this is perhaps what they feel. If you want to make an appeal, a direct appeal, what would you say?
Lyn Young,
"I can't get into the argument about whose a despot or whose not a despot, but surely you're breaking up the house to save the house; that is what it seems like to me. I don't know if that's the right way."
BEL is offering a reward to anyone who can provide information which will lead to the arrest and conviction of the saboteurs. As Young alluded to in the interview, the PUC has also dealt BEL a stiff blow with its initial decision on the full tariff review proceeding. The PUC has recommended a rate increase of 75 when BEL asked for 145. Young says BEL will ask the PUC to re-visit the decision.
