The City of Williams Lake, B.C., is calling on the province to step in to prevent the closure of a power plant critical to local employment and the municipality’s bottom line. The Atlantic Power facility generates enough electricity to power about 50,000 homes by burning wood waste… The Atlantic Power plant gave notice last February that it was going to pull out of the community, citing an inability to remain profitable under its current contract with BC Hydro. Williams Lake City Councillor Scott Nelson said that’s because, with the closure of local sawmills and upgrades to others to improve their efficiency, easy-to-access wood fibre has become more scarce. Instead, the company now sources inputs from the surrounding Chilcotin Plateau, collecting the waste wood left by wildfires and dead wood that could become fuel for future wildfires, he said.