AUGUSTA, Maine — Maine's Public Utilities Commission voted Tuesday in a unanimous decision that sky-high electricity bills cannot be the way law enforcement finds illegal pot-growing operations in the state.
Over the past eight to nine months, sheriffs' departments in several Maine counties have raided dozens of homes that were bought, boarded up, and gutted all to grow marijuana.
One thing nearly all operations had in common was a surge in the amount of power they used.
"We've seen some instances of people with large-scale, illegal growing operations and residential properties here in northern [and] eastern Maine," Judy Long, senior manager of communications at Versant Power, said. "We started to get a lot of requests from law enforcement for information regarding some of these suspected grow houses."
Long said these operations are a growing danger in communities.
"The grow houses were using way more electricity in some cases than their residential wiring could accommodate without creating a real danger of fire," Long said. "We had a couple situations where meter readers went to these residences and found that the actual electric meter on the house was in excess of 500 degrees Fahrenheit."
Due to this potentially dangerous excess in utility usage, Versant proposed an idea to the Maine PUC, which centers around reporting to law enforcement if utility usage suggests illegal grow operations.
"This was a conversation strictly about people that were using marijuana growing operations in an unsafe way and were able to be identified through certain characteristics of that unsafe usage," Long said.
However, Maine PUC turned down that proposal.
"We don't want utilities to be selling information or be sharing private customer information, whether that's usage or personally identifiable information about where they live and so forth," Phil Bartlett, chair of the Maine PUC, said.
Other concerns raised included the chance lawful growing operations would be reported or even just someone who has higher-than-normal power usage.
"Categories that they were providing seem that they were pretty broad," Bartlett said. "Our concern is that it's really not the role for utility, at least as we historically have defined it, to be monitoring sort of behavior of customers, and then reporting suspicious activity."
Safety is top of mind for Versant, but company leaders said privacy is also a top priority.
"At no time have we shared customer information with anyone including law enforcement, without a subpoena or a warrant," Long said. "That continues to be our practice, and we will continue to work with law enforcement and the way that we're allowed to."
If the trend of illegal marijuana growing operations continues, Bartlett said more may need to be done.
"If there's a particular issue around growing operations, that needs to have a larger discussion," Bartlett said. "I think the legislature would be an appropriate place for that."
Long said Versant is willing to have conversations about this topic again down the line but said the company understands and respects the decision by Maine PUC.