After discovering that it has not paid its water licence fees for several years, the Yukon Electrical Company Ltd. (YECL) has publicly expressed interest in the controversial Porter Creek greenbelt.

In an interview this morning, Doug Tennie, YECL's general manager, said his company has had a water licence within the disputed greenbelt for decades and sent a representative to a Yukon government open house Thursday to make their interests public.

The licence in the greenbelt, he said, has been held for more than 20 years and represents an interest by the company in building a small power generating station on McIntyre Creek.

It recently came to light, Tennie added, that the company had not paid its McIntyre Creek licence fees nor the fees for two other licences the company holds for its generating stations in the Fish Lake Road area.

'There's a whole bunch of interest in that area right now ... we just wanted people to know that we had a licence in that area.

'We still have a licence up there,' he said.

Thursday's open house is one of three being hosted by YTG this week to collect information which will be forwarded to Premier Dennis Fentie's cabinet.

Fentie and his ministers will have the final say on how the greenbelt which has been promised to Yukon College as endowment lands, identified by the city for development and spurred a greenbelt referendum by the Porter Creek Community Association who wants the area protected will be used.

Tennie said while his company hasn't paid the required licensing fees for 'several years,' they have been working with the Yukon Water Board and he now believes that the company's payments are up to date.

Tennie said while the company does have an interest in building a small 0.75-megawatt power generating station in the McIntyre Creek area, there was no official plan or timeline on the project which may or may not come to fruition.

'We're not saying we're going to have a project there ... we're just saying we have a licence.'

Tennie said he could not say how many years the company has not paid its fees.

Water board manager Judi White said this morning the reason the YECL had not paid its licence fees for the past several years is a clerical error.

'We invoice for water fees ... (and) we made a mistake at some point. Through a clerical error, we stopped invoicing.'

She said while she wasn't exactly sure how long it had been since YECL had been billed for all three of its licences, it had likely 'been three or four years.'

She said when a third party expressed interest in obtaining a licence in the McIntyre Creek area recently, the very same area where Yukon Electrical Co. Ltd. has a licence for its third power generator, water board officials began looking through their records.

'I guess, for some reason, we screwed up our database. We've apologized to Yukon Electrical. They've really been very good about this.'

The third-party interest is a company by the name of Drum Resources Inc.

A spokesperson for Drum Resources, who preferred not to be named, said they have applied for a water licence, in the same greenbelt location that YECL has its licence, because they had an interest in building a power generating station that could supply energy to Yukon College, the Whitehorse Correctional Centre, the Marwell industrial area and the Takhini subdivision.

The spokesperson said they felt since YECL had not paid its water licensing fees for several years, its licence should be considered expired and the Drum Resources application should be granted.

Tennie said YECL officials only became aware of the third-party interest in the last few days.

However, documents obtained by the Star show that YECL officials had been communicating with Drum Resources on the water licence issue for more than a month.

In a Feb. 2 e-mail from James Gratton, YECL's manager of customer service, to Drum resources, Gratton maintains that his company is continuing with its plans to build a third generator in the greenbelt area.

'Yukon Electrical/Yukon Hydro have owned and operated the Fish Lake Hydro system for 50 years. Both companies exist and are registered as part of the ATCO Group of companies.

'Yukon Electrical, its affiliates and partners continue to have an interest in developing a third unit on McIntyre Creek,' the e-mail states.

In an interview this morning, Eric Magnuson, assistant deputy minister of the Department of Community Services, said this is the first he has heard of YECL's interest in the area.

'I heard there was a guy from Yukon Electrical who came out to the meeting.

'That's an interesting development ... who knew?' he said.

McIntyre Creek was known to be a salmon-bearing creek, he added. He said he would be interested in seeing how plans to develop another power generating plant in the area, should it come forward, would deal with that.

'Even if there was a small generating station, they would still have to deal with a number of environmental issues with the creek,' he said.

He said YECL's move of sending someone unannounced to a public meeting to express interest was somewhat unusual.

Mayor Ernie Bourassa said this morning he has never been informed of YECL's interest in the area either.

'I don't know how I would describe it; it's certainly a surprise for us at the political level.

'I'm certainly very interested in hearing that they have a proposal there. Whether it's compatible with what's going on in the area remains to be seen.'