IF THE ONTARIO GOVERNMENT is really serious about supporting Energy From Waste, it should revisit current legislation that regulates the distribution of electrical energy.

Back in February the government directed the Ontario Power Authority to set up a program that would support the early development of energyfrom waste facilities in the province.

Energy Minister Gerry Phillips, in a letter addressed to power authority chief executive Jan Carr, cited the need to test and evaluate new technologies that can turn municipal solid waste into electricity. Already, he pointed out, the government has streamlined the environmental approvals needed to build and operate such demonstration plants.

"The goal of the initiative is to encourage the development of new or improved energy-fromwaste technologies with improved environmental performance," he wrote, hinting that the power authority should be prepared to pay 10 cents per kilowatt hour for any demonstration project that falls within the initiative.

It's a long overdue move for a technology with significant potential. Yet the province's regulations appear to serve as an impediment to development of Dufferin County's EcoEnergy Park, a 200-acre site that is to be subdivided into parcels for environmentally beneficial uses.

Thermal treatment of waste would likely be at the centre of the park, surrounded by one or more compost facilities, greenhouses, and such other things as would be appropriate to the purposes of the site. A county council dream would be to be the producer of energy, while other tenants would be the consumers.

But the regulations would not allow the county to transmit the electricity across property lines, i.e. from the producer to the consumer. Instead, the producer would have to contract with Ontario Power Authority and find a way to feed the local distribution grid whence Hydro One or another retailer would sell power to a user a few metres away from the generator.

In terms of financial and material expenditure, this does not appear to make economic sense. Yet we do acknowledge that the drafters of regulations upon the split-up of Ontario Hydro could not have anticipated a unique situation such as the park would be.

Surely, though, it's time for the OPA and the ministry to draft an exception to fit the uniqueness of Dufferin's initiative.

There's another way in which upper levels of government could show their EFW support. They should do so by funding the development costs of EcoEnergy Park as a model project for other municipalities to follow.

In Dufferin's case, the thermal plant itself would be funded by a co-proponent, as would the greenhouses and other environmentally friendly uses. But things such as roadways, power lines, surveys and other necessities are at the county's expense. They are a good investment, and wouldn't make much difference to the federal and provincial governments.