Dear editor,Lately I have read a number of letters to local papers from folks purporting to live in the Fraser Valley touting the worth of Run of the River hydro projects and what a great deal present and forecast BC Hydro rates are.Also a more reasoned letter pointing out that the local hydro infrastructure is long overdue for upgrades, plus a vapid article on the efficacy of Smart Meters by columnist Tom Fletcher.However, there is a whole lot more to this debate, and for some reason it isn鈥檛 seeing the light of day. Please consider the following.BC Hydro pays a hefty 13-per-cent dividend to the B.C. government. That money finds its way into provincial general revenues.Call it what you will, but that is a tax.Add it to the 12-per-cent HST that you already pay on every Hydro bill and a goodly portion of every dollar that you pay for hydro is going straight to the two governments. For an essential commodity this is ridiculous.It can be argued that if they don鈥檛 tax us here, they will get us somewhere else. However, as a tax, it seems logical that this tax impacts lower- and middle-income earners disproportionally as all of us who live in a northern climate have minimum essential heating and lighting requirements.Coming at this dividend from another angle; in a typical business model that 13-per-cent would be used to finance necessary upgrades to maintain and enhance infrastructure. In this case, the government pockets that money and then forces the consumer to assume an exorbitant rate increase based on infrastructure requirements.Since 2003 BC Hydro has spent approximately $500 million on the Power Smart program. And they plan to spend $418 million more over the next three years (Globe and Mail).Last week, I read that BC Hydro was handing out cheques to two local charities. This seems to happen quite often.While the charities are worthwhile and require funding, that is our hydro money. Why do we pay for hydro only to have them give the money to charity?On top of the present and projected costs for Power Smart, BC Hydro wants to spend $1 billion on Smart Meters. These will allow the customer to freak out as the needle goes round faster and faster on those cold winter mornings.Stated benefits include $20M in stopping grow op power thefts...a payback period of at least 50 years. It will also allow Hydro crews to know whose power is out and when it is back on again after repairs. They will also allow Hydro to get billing data while zipping down the street in a fancy van.All commendable, but hardly worth a whopping $1B.Numbers are hard to get and interpret but it looks like BC Hydro total annual employment costs have risen from around $336M to $558M from 2006 to 2009. That鈥檚 $222M in three years, folks.And the number of employees making over $150K has jumped by 143 per cent in the same period (Globe and Mail).Used to be that a civil servant took home lower pay in exchange for job security and a respectable pension. Seems that that has changed.From what I could see a lot of the recently resigned premier鈥檚 energy went into what are called Run of the River projects. He gave companies exclusive 40 year leases on dozens of B.C.鈥檚 pristine river systems and contracted to pay them well over $30B for power over a 30-year period at around 12 cents a kwh. That is roughly two to three times today鈥檚 rates.It also committed BC Hydro to spend enormous future infrastructure funds to bring those widely distributed power sources into the grid.  When the BCUC balked at the deal he simply replaced them; they had some antiquated notion of supplying reliable power at the lowest possible cost.Our former Premier鈥檚 plan was to sell the power into the California grid where it would qualify for premium rates based on being clean power.  In my opinion this is why you saw the Governator sitting up front at the Olympics...its called marketing.  Alas, the good people of California looked at these rivers being turned into giant storm sewers and refused the premium pricing.  So, for the next 30 years we will be paying for this very expensive folly.  A bunch of government and Hydro folks jumped over to Plutonic early in the program for very attractive salaries, and good monies were made by a few on the markets.However, Plutonic, after due consideration of where all of this is now headed, last week sold out lock, stock and barrel to Magma Corporation.So, the next time you are bent over to plug in the vacuum cleaner, pause for a moment and reflect on the fact that this is the position that BC Hydro and the B.C. government of the day have adroitly manoeuvred you into.  It is time for BC Hydro to restructure the present two tiered bill so that the low rate usage allowance actually meets the needs of a typical family, and then raise the rate applied to the remaining usage enough to discourage wasteful habits.  It is also time to remove the HST from hydro bills, cancel the 13 percent dividend, get a firm grip on Power Smart and rethink the Smart Meters.  And then, and only then, if the numbers warrant, come forward with a request for a rate increase.To allay any notions that this is a political as opposed to a personal rant, please note that I do not partake of provincial politics.One group pays their friends $400M to build ferries that sell for $20M and the other side sells out B.C.鈥檚 world class natural heritage for the almighty dollar.Terry Burt,Comox