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

Maine utility regulators on Tuesday unanimously rejected a proposal by Versant Power Co. to alert law enforcement to high electricity use 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.

Commissioners voted 3-0 to exclude that provision from changes to consumer protections.

“It would not be appropriate for utilities to report high-usage customers as Versant has proposed,” PUC Chairman Philip L. Bartlett II said at the agency’s 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 said he would be concerned that reports based solely on electricity use could expose customers engaged in lawful activities to criminal investigations. “This is the job of law enforcement, not of utilities,” he said.

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

Judy Long, a spokesperson for Versant, said the utility offered its ideas about illegal growing activities “in the interest of safety.”

“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,” she said.

Central Maine Power Co., the state’s largest utility, said it cooperates with police requests for information as part of a “lawful process.”

But it “does not consider it appropriate for utilities to speculate about whether or not customers are engaging in illegal activity based simply on their usage levels or patterns or to divulge confidential customer usage data to law enforcement agencies.”

Versant, which serves about 165,000 customers in eastern and northern Maine, proposed to allow utilities 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 said utilities should be permitted to share customer information with police when there is “good faith belief” of a crime. Illegal cannabis growing operations are an “escalating problem” in its service territory, 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.

A GROWING PROBLEM

Between January and May, the Somerset County Sheriff’s Office led the execution of search warrants at 18 suspected marijuana grows, according to information released by Sheriff Dale Lancaster’s office in June. Eleven arrests had been made in connection with the busts as of the end of May. Lancaster did not respond Tuesday to questions about whether the PUC decision would affect his work cracking down on the illegal grow operations.

The Office of the Public Advocate, which represents utility customers, said Versant was going beyond its mandate to provide electrical service.

“Utilities should not take on the role of attempting to determine when laws are being broken by their customers,” the office said.

Versant said it has received subpoenas for information about illegal cannabis growing operations – sometimes for 50 sites at a time, its lawyer told The Associated Press –  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.

Energy consumption at illegal grow sites is often more than 3,000 kilowatt-hours a month, the utility said. Typical household usage in Maine is 550 kWh, according to the Governor’s Energy Office.

Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, has pressed the FBI about illegal marijuana operations and said cooperation between utilities and law enforcement “could be of tremendous help” to target the sites. Criminal organizations are “destroying homes and pose a significant threat to our public health and national security,” she said. Cooperating with Maine’s utilities could help county sheriffs and other officials who are trying to target illegal grow operations, she said in a statement.

Collins’ office did not respond to a request Tuesday to comment on the PUC’s decision.