Controversies and political views aside, the construction of the future $730 million Portlands Energy Centre is a fascinating beehive of activity.
On a recent Friday afternoon, 300 workers were busy hammering, welding and moving materials and machinery. Huge cranes swung overhead as 18-wheelers manoeuvred their way around the site dominated by massive pieces of the energy generation centre's smoke stack, which will be used for the plant's simple cycle operation. Those pieces, weighing a total of 220,000 pounds, have since been assembled into a 45-metre high stack.
"Regardless of where you stand on the issue, it's like being a little kid in a huge playground but on a much bigger and much more important scale," said Ted Gruetzner, PEC's senior manager of public affairs.
"The co-ordination of (the project) is amazing."
Pointing out various aspects of the project, Gruetzner spoke about the site's previous uses as a dumping area for construction materials as well as home to the now-mothballed R.L. Hearn Generating Station's coal yard.
As its latest incarnation, the site will soon be home to the 550-megawatt gas-fired Portlands Energy Centre, which is set to open in June 2008.
At this point, there a huge hill of contaminated soil, which will be properly contained and remain on the site. There's also a temporary pond that will eventually be filled in and turned into landscaped grassland.
Near the centre of the site, 560,000-pound generators and 377,000-pound turbines are currently being assembled and will be eventually surrounded by a large building.
Nearby, work is being done on a water-intake channel, which will use water from the nearby ship turning channel for the plant's cooling and operation.
That water will then be treated and sent back to Lake Ontario through a discharge channel that includes a series of water retention ponds landscaped with bullrushes and aquatic plants.
"Right now it's a huge construction site that will eventually become a few box buildings manned by a team of about 25 employees," Gruetzner said, adding that on June 1 the PEC's construction team celebrated 250,000 hours of work on the project without a single lost-time incident.
The Portlands Energy Centre is designed to be a transition plant as the province moves away from coal-fired energy generation to respond to the GTA's energy needs until a alternative energy sources become more reliable.