KAKABEKA FALLS, Ont. — After recent incidents involving trespassers, Ontario Power Generation is cautioning area residents to stay away from its power dam infrastructure at Kakabeka Falls.
OPG spokesperson Tana-Leigh Harty says someone drove a machine along an access road to its dam on the Kaministiquia River and struck a maintenance port in an aqueduct.
"What we've seen from the tracks in that area is it looks like a snowmobile hit the manhole, and somebody may have gone 'flying'," Harty told TBNewswatch.
"That's a safety issue...It's not a place for recreation or sport. If they damaged that aqueduct and somehow our operations don't work properly, or somebody gets hurt. There's concrete. It's not good."
OPG is also worried about people using skating rinks someone has built on the ice near an intake for the generating station.
Harty said "We have an earth dam at the intake...Someone has plowed our dam with some heavy equipment and they created two skating rinks. That is an extreme safety concern."
"If someone were to fall through the ice, and the stream takes them down, and they end up in our trash racks or our intake, God forbid."
A trash rack is an apparatus that prevents debris from being sucked into a water intake.
OPG recently put a lock on a gate to the access road, and placed new signage in an effort to discourage unsafe practices in that area.
It's also erected snow fencing to direct snowmobilers to an approved route.
"We have an agreement with the snowmobilers club, and there is a trail that we allow them to use that's safe. But it looks like some people have taken advantage of the situation," Harty said.
The gate had been left open until now, she said, because the company knows people like to use the road for recreational walks.
She said snowmobilers should only use the authorized route that crosses an aqueduct which has no manholes.
"It's a safe trail that they can take, and they're aware of it."
As for walkers who expressed disappointment after finding the access road blocked, Harty said they can circumvent the gate and fencing by trekking through a bit of snow, "but they can still walk there. We still plow the road."
OPG has brought the trespassing issues to the attention of the O.P.P., which is responsible for enforcement.
Harty said the company is also working with Thunder Bay Adventure Trails which has installed additional fencing in the area to keep its members safe.
OPG will reassess the situation in the spring, and may implement additional safety measures before next winter.
