City councillors want the Ministry of Energy to ensure that a power plant’s conversion is completed on time.
During a regular scheduled council meeting Monday evening, Thunder Bay councillors voted in favour of asking the Ministry to direct the Ontario Power Authority to finalize a power purchase agreement with the Ontario Power Generation in order to convert the Thunder Bay generating station from coal by the 2014 due date.
Officials with OPG announced the suspension of the conversion project until they have an agreement with the OPA.
At-Large Coun. Larry Hebert raised alarms about the issue and repeated remarks he made previously that if the city didn’t address the issue soon they could face problems later down the road.
He added that Thunder Bay was probably used as a pawn for the negotiations process.
“Was I being an alarmist? Probably because the scenario I pointed out is not likely to happen but it could happen,” Hebert said referring to his early comments that the city could face rolling black outs and brown outs if the conversion isn’t done on time.
“It would be a perfect storm situation but we have had perfect storm situations in the last decade particularly in regard to resource supported industries. It could happen.”
