Man arrested at Tsawwassen power line protest

A Tsawwassenman was arrested on Monday morningafter angry residents confronted BC Transmission Corporation workerswho showed up to finish erecting a pole for a power line.

When crews first arrived at the work site in the suburb south of Vancouver, dozens of residents were blocking their access to the construction site. After being asked by police to move, all butone of the protesters moved outside a fence erected around the site by the BCTC.

The male protester who refused to leaveremained perched on top of the roughly three-metre-high concrete base built for the new power pole.

The man climbed down after police read him a court order, issued by a judge last month, which was intended to stop protesters from blocking the construction site.

As the man was being led away, he bent down and pulled out a survey marker. Police then arrested him and put him in handcuffs. It was not immediately known whether the man was charged with anything following his arrest.

Last week, a B.C. Supreme Court judge warned residents for a second time not to interfere with the power line construction, after BCTC lawyers said protesters continued to obstruct the installation of new poles, despite the judge's earlier court order.

Tina Ryan, the owner of the property where crews were installing the new power pole on Monday, told CBC News most of the protesters don't want to break the law, but they considerthe planned power line to be a health risk to area residents.

"No one wants to go to jail at this point The point of all these people here today is to show them that we are not going to back down We are going to do everything we can within the law to stop this project," Ryan said.

BCTC has said it needs to upgrade the power line which runs through several residential properties along a 50-year-old right-of-way to meet increased demands for power from customers on Vancouver Island.