Utility company's proposal to rat out hidden marijuana operations to police raises privacy concerns

BANGOR, Maine (AP) — Operators of illegal marijuana grow enterprises hidden inside rural homes in Maine don’t have to worry much about prying neighbors. But their staggering electric bills may give rise to a new snitch.

An electric utility made an unusual proposal to help law enforcement target these illicit operations, which are being investigated for ties to transnational crime. Critics, however, worry the move would violate customers’ privacy.

More than a dozen states that legalized marijuana have seen a spike in illegal marijuana grow operations that utilize massive amounts of electricity. And Maine's Versant Power has been receiving subpoenas — sometimes for 50 locations at a time — from law enforcement, said Arrian Myrick-Stockdell, corporate counsel. It’d be far more efficient, he suggested to utility regulators, to flip the script and allow electric utilities to report their suspicions to law enforcement.

“Versant has a very high success rate in being able to identify these locations, but we have no ability to communicate with law enforcement proactively,” Myrick-Stockdell told commissioners.

The proposal, to be deliberated next week by the Maine Public Utilities Commission, is being criticized by consumer privacy advocates and others who think the utility is veering outside its lane.

The nonprofit Electronic Privacy Information Center believes such a regulatory rule would be unconstitutional because the electric utility would be allowed to provide private information about consumers with “no probable cause, no warrant, no judicial review," Alan Butler, the group’s executive director, told The Associated Press.

The Washington-based group has never heard of a proposal like this, he said, though federal courts have authorized the sharing of consumer data from so-called “smart” electric meters for the limited purposes of managing the power grid.

Jay Stanley, an American Civil Liberties Union privacy expert, compared a utility combing through customer data to an illegal dragnet. “Utilities should not be doing that. They have a duty of protecting their customers’ privacy,” he said.

Historically, the courts have given special privacy protections for what happens inside a home.

The U.S. Supreme Court in 2001 ruled that federal agents’ use of thermal-imaging equipment without a search warrant to detect heat from marijuana grow lights inside an Oregon man’s home was unconstitutional.

The Maine utility regulatory proceeding comes as law enforcement officials target marijuana grow operations in which rural homes are purchased, gutted and transformed into sophisticated, high-yield indoor farms.

All told, 20 states have been dealing with phenomena similar to what's happening in Maine.

The common denominator is that criminals appear to be taking advantage of laws legalizing marijuana in an attempt to fly under the radar to produce marijuana that’s sold in states where cannabis is illegal. The FBI and Drug Enforcement Administration are investigating any ties these operations might have to criminal syndicates including Chinese organized crime.

In Oklahoma, farms, empty nursing homes, bowling alleys and warehouses were transformed into marijuana production operations after voters legalized cannabis for medical use in 2018. Police began cracking down after realizing straw owners in China and Mexico were running many of the licensed operations, said Mark Woodward, spokesperson for the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics.

In Maine, it looks different with purchases of low-price homes in off-the-beaten-path locations, installations of power-hungry grow equipment and upgraded electrical service to support the operations. Police have taken note of that power consumption. At one of the homes busted in Maine, the monthly electric bill grew from about $300 to nearly nearly $9,000, according to court documents. There were more than 100 of them at one point.

The grow houses operate according to a similar playbook regarding the kinds of residences used and interior set-ups with powerful lights, climate control and chemicals. However, they’re not linked together like a typical franchise arrangement, making it difficult for law enforcement agencies to link them to a single syndicate, Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrew Lizotte told The Associated Press.

In Somerset County, Sheriff Dale Lancaster, whose deputies have executed search warrants on 21 marijuana operations, said law enforcement works best with community support, and he described Versant’s proposal as a “good first step."

Republican Sen. Susan Collins, who has aggressively pressed the FBI about the illegal marijuana operations, also supports Versant’s efforts to be an ally with law enforcement agencies. “Cooperation between Maine’s electric companies and law enforcement could be of tremendous help to the county sheriffs and other officials who have been working tirelessly to target these illegal grow operations,” she said.

Versant’s proposal was discussed by the Maine Public Utilities Commission earlier this year. Versant pointed out safety concerns for its workers and the public, including potential fires from overheated equipment caused by improper customer installations. Some workers have noted electric meters that were too hot to touch at the illicit operations.

Derek Davidson, a member of the commission staff, mused about the possibility of a threshold for reporting electric consumption spikes to police, but noted that there are sometimes legitimate users “who just have astronomical usage.”

Mark Morisette from Central Maine Power said it “seems like an eerie line to even consider crossing” and backed his call for caution with an example of a 100-fold increase in electricity consumption after a flood, which necessitated temporary heaters and fans to dry it out.

CMP, the state's largest electric utility, now formally opposes the change but will continue to fully cooperate with law enforcement if customer information is requested through subpoena, said spokesperson Jonathan Breed.

Maine Public Advocate William Harwood is also against the proposal, arguing there are too many legitimate reasons for growing customer consumption such as the installation of heat pumps and electric vehicle charging stations. “We believe that utilities should focus on consumer needs and service to consumers, rather than alerting law enforcement to questionable customer behavior,” he said.