Ontario Energy Minister Brad Duguid and Ontario Power Generation president Tom Mitchell were in the Far North in late August, inspecting progress on hydroelectric dam construction on the Lower Mattagami River.
The Lower Mattagami River project is a beehive of activity with 300 contractors already on site.
The project will see upgrades to four hydroelectric plants located 70 kilometres north of Kapuskasing and 200 kilometres south of Moose Factory on the James Bay coast.
Generating units will be added at three stations (Little Long, Harmon and Kipling) and the station at Smoky Falls will be replaced.
It's the first major hydroelectric project in Northern Ontario in 40 years.
The 440-megawatt power project will produce electricity to power the equivalent of 300,000 homes. Over the course of the five-year construction period, about two-thirds of the workforce will be from Northern Ontario.
The Moose Cree First Nation is a partner with Ontario Power Generation (OPG) and will have as much as a 25-per-cent equity stake.
In an Aug. 26 press release, Chief Norman Hardisty called their partnership with OPG “the way of the future.”
Mitchell added OPG's partnership with the Moose Cree “marks a new way of doing business in the North.”
Duguid said the Lower Mattagami project creates “new economic opportunities for Northern families and Aboriginal communities” while providing “clean, reliable and cost-effective power” for Ontario.
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