Marijuana plants found recently in an illegal grow operation in the Whitefield area. Courtesy of Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office

Maine utility regulators on Tuesday unanimously rejected a proposal by Versant Power to alert law enforcement to high electricity consumption that could indicate illegal marijuana growing operations.

The Public Utilities Commission considered changes to a set of rules governing billing and payments, service disconnection, dispute resolution and other practices. One provision – the confidentiality of customer information – drew the most attention because it could have authorized utilities to give law enforcement information about suspected illegal activity, such as cannabis growing operations that draw tremendous amounts of electricity for lights and fans that sometimes run 24 hours a day.

“It would not be appropriate for utilities to report high-usage customers as Versant has proposed,” PUC Chairman Philip L. Bartlett II said at an agency meeting. “Such customers may have other legitimate reasons for high usage and using such broad criteria would likely result in the privacy of many innocent customers being violated.”

Commissioner Patrick Scully agreed.

“I would be concerned that reports based solely on usage could expose customers engaged in lawful activities to criminal investigations,” he said. “This is the job of law enforcement, not of utilities.”

If law enforcement has a reason to investigate a particular property, it can seek through a lawfully issued subpoena records maintained by a utility, Scully said.

Commissioner Carolyn Gilbert also voted against the Versant proposal, saying it could wrongly affect customers with high electricity bills unrelated to marijuana growing.

“After the discussion and today’s ruling, we have clear direction from the commission and we will remain vigilant in protecting customers’ private information while continuing to work as mandated with law enforcement,” Judy Long, a spokesperson for Versant, said.

Versant proposed to allow a utility to disclose to third parties such as law enforcement agencies, “pursuant to lawful process,” the name, address, email, telephone number, electricity or gas use, payment and credit history, and financial or medical condition of a customer without their consent.

In testimony to the PUC, Versant Power said utilities should be permitted to disclose customer information to law enforcement when there is “good faith belief” of a crime. Illegal cannabis growing operations are an “escalating problem” in Versant’s service territory in northern and central Maine, the utility said.

Versant can identify such “operations with a high degree of certainty” based on rural residential service addresses; installation of, or requests for, large amounts of power; damage to Versant equipment caused by high usage or improper customer installations; extremely high energy consumption and other commercial activities; and installations unusual for a residence, it said.

Central Maine Power Co., the state’s largest utility, disagreed with what it said is Versant’s suggestion that privacy provisions in current regulations do not allow utilities to report a customer’s name or address when a crime is committed against its employees or agents. “CMP does not read such a prohibition in the rule as written,” it said.

Energy consumption at illegal grow sites is often more than 3,000 kilowatt-hours a month, Versant said.

The utility said it has received subpoenas for information about illegal cannabis growing operations that “have been consistent with the accounts and locations Versant was aware of.” But the current confidentiality rule “chills Versant’s ability to cooperate with law enforcement to resolve this serious issue,” it said.

Somerset County, Sheriff Dale Lancaster, whose deputies have executed search warrants on 21 marijuana operations, said law enforcement works best with community support, and he described Versant’s proposal as a “good first step.”

This story will be updated.

Copy the Story Link