HydroOne holds Open House

Mar 28, 2018 @ 10:20

 

HydroOne held an Open House at the Legion on Thursday, March 22nd. On display were a number of maps detailing where their plan is to install the East-West Tie Line.

 

HydroOne will follow the existing powerline from Wawa to just east of Dorion where the powerline will divert around the town of Dorion for about 50 kilometres. With ‘running in the shadow’ of the existing line’s right of way they hope to cut costs.

 

When asked “Why all of a sudden?” referring to what seems to be a very sudden interest in putting in a bid on this project, it was in a brief history lesson explained that in 2013 there was a bid process for the development of the line, the East West Tie Line. That meant engagement with the owners, doing geotechnical surveys, etc.  HydroOne came in second. NextBridge being the successful bidder, continued with developing their Leave to Construct. HydroOne looked at that application (Leave to Construct) in July 2017, looked at the values, costs to build, and decided that those costs were too much, and began to develop their own plan.

 

When asked if this changed the partnerships that NextBridge has developed (training of students, SuperCom, etc) the response was, “We hope to engage those parties as well. They are local, trained up, I know that they are in agreements with NextBridge. Our hope is that if NextBridge is the successful bidder those contracts stay intact. If NextBridge isn’t the successful bidder and HydroOne is, then we would hopefully engage with them.”