Latest news with #PeterChura
Winnipeg Free Press
29-05-2025
- Climate
- Winnipeg Free Press
Jenpeg employees evacuated
The wildfire threat in the northern part of the province has prompted the evacuation of Manitoba Hydro's Jenpeg generating station. The precautionary evacuation occurred late Wednesday afternoon when an advancing 3,290-hectare out-of-control wildfire reached a point five kilometres away. 'All Manitoba Hydro employees have safely left the area,' Peter Chura, spokesman for the publicly owned power utility, said Thursday. The 174-megawatt facility constructed in 1972 and completed in 1979 has been undergoing maintenance and was not generating electricity, so there is no effect on customers, Chura said. Normal staffing at Jenpeg — located where the west channel of the Nelson River flows into Cross Lake, about 135 km south of Thompson — is close to 30 people, he said. Its powerhouse and spillway structures are also used to regulate about 85 per cent of the water flowing out of Lake Winnipeg. All hydro employees have safely been moved from any areas under evacuation orders, he noted. The fire forced the evacuation of the nearby Pimicikamak Cree Nation; residents were among more than 17,000 people evacuated from several northern communities, including the City of Flin Flon and Town of Lynn Lake and the Mathias Colomb First Nation. Pointe du Bois and Slave Falls generating stations have returned to routine operations and staffing levels, Chura said. On May 14, Manitoba Hydro announced the imminent evacuation of workers from those two stations on the Winnipeg River as wildfires threatened to cut off road access. 'We continue to monitor the situation in case it changes, or new fire starts are observed,' Chura said. 'Power is mostly restored from wildfire-related outages in eastern Manitoba except for part of Nopiming, which is de-energized as a safety precaution due to fires in the area. He said fire and smoke conditions are currently preventing hydro from assessing damage or restoration of power outages — likely fire-related — in several communities. Out of firefighters, looking abroad The Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre has called on its international partners for backup as Canada has run out of wildland firefighters. As of Thursday afternoon, every wildland firefighter and resource in Canada was spoken for due to increased fire activity across the country. 'We just raised the national preparedness level from a Level 4 to a Level 5 — which is the highest level — and essentially what that means is that all Canadian firefighting resources that are otherwise available have all now been committed,' said Alex Jones, the acting communications manager at CIFFC. The non-profit is owned and operated by the federal, provincial and territorial governments. It co-ordinates and allocates wildfire resources across Canada and, when called upon, internationally. Manitoba currently has personnel from Alberta, British Columbia, Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick and Parks Canada, as well as support personnel from CIFFC itself, but still have more requests for help in the queue. CIFFC must now ask for help from outside partners, such as the U.S., Mexico, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Costa Rica, Portugal, Chile and France. Response to that call is based on availability and how quick help can get here. Jones couldn't say whether Manitoba would accept help from the U.S. amid current cross-border trade tensions. 'We do have a really strong, really long-standing agreement with the United States. It's been in place since 1982 and we just re-sign the agreement this spring and so right now essentially it's business as usual and they're ready to support if they can,' she said. 'We try and maintain those relationships with fire as much as possible because at the end of the day, public safety is No. 1.' At a Wednesday news conference, Premier Wab Kinew wouldn't comment on whether the province would ask its neighbours to the south for additional resources. Mining company lends hand A Toronto-based mining company operating in northern Manitoba is working to ensure its employees remain safe. Hudbay Minerals Inc. has ongoing care and maintenance activities in Flin Flon following the closure of the 777 mine in 2022 as well as services to support its Snow Lake operations, the company said in a news release Thursday afternoon. The company is securing additional accommodations in Snow Lake for its evacuated employees and their families; deploying trained emergency personnel to aid firefighting efforts; maintaining communication with local communities and provincial authorities about the resources it has available to support emergency-response efforts; and providing facility infrastructure information to assist with planning and response. Hudbay is continuing operations in Snow Lake, approximately 200 kilometres east of Flin Flon, and expects temporary reduced production levels, as a large portion of its workforce lives in Flin Flon. Hudbay is a copper-focused critical minerals mining company with three long-life operations and a pipeline of copper growth projects in Canada, Peru and the United States. — Compiled by Nicole Buffie, Carol Sanders and Aaron Epp
CBC
10-05-2025
- Climate
- CBC
Tractor collides with Manitoba Hydro tower, temporarily cutting capacity on major transmission lines
Manitoba Hydro is cautioning farmers about operating equipment near its infrastructure after a tractor pulling a piece of equipment collided with a hydro tower this week, causing the Crown corporation to lose about a quarter of its transmission capacity. Two of Manitoba Hydro's three main transmission lines were at partial capacity since Tuesday, after a farm tractor pulling a piece of equipment knocked down a tower near Grosse Isle in the Interlake area. "The towers are designed to withstand reasonable forces, you know, high winds … snow, ice. But a large piece of machinery banging into it, there isn't much that's going to withstand that," Hydro spokesperson Peter Chura said in an interview Friday. Chura added while there was "significant loss in transmission capacity, which is never good news," there wasn't a great load on the system at the time — meaning customers were virtually unaffected despite the loss of about 1,400 megawatts of the system's peak transmission capacity of 6,100 megawatts. He said while that loss was on the Bipole I line, that line also carries energy for the Bipole II line — both of which help deliver generating capacity from the Nelson River in northern Manitoba to southern Manitoba. Media relations officer Chura said if those lines had gone down in the height of summer or winter, when people generally use more electricity, Hydro may have had to rely on emergency sources of energy, including firing up the Brandon generating station or using transmission lines to and from the United States. Chura said crews have replaced the damaged high-voltage tower in Manitoba's Interlake area, and the transmission lines were due to go back in service Friday. WATCH | Manitoba Hydro warns farmers after tower damaged by tractor: Manitoba Hydro warns farmers after tower damaged by tractor 5 hours ago Duration 1:42 Manitoba Hydro is urging farmers to be cautious when using equipment near its infrastructure after a tractor collided with a tower in the Interlake on Tuesday. Since then, two of the utility's three main transmission lines have been at partial capacity. He added it was the third time in the past few days where farm equipment has damaged Hydro infrastructure, following similar incidents that caused local power outages near the southern Manitoba community of Oakville and the community of Russell in western Manitoba. "Our main message here is safety. Farmers need to be very careful around Hydro equipment because it's potentially dangerous," Chura said, adding farmers using public roads should apply to Hydro for a clearance permit to identify safe routes for moving tall equipment. "The risk of electrocution is great in these situations." Damage to overhead power lines, poles and towers can also result in outages affecting service to hospital, police and fire stations, which can affect public safety, he said. Chura said generally speaking, when a farmer's machinery comes into contact with Hydro equipment, the farmer is responsible for the cost and typically has insurance to cover the damage. Last year, farm equipment made contact with Hydro infrastructure 136 times, with cultivators and air seeders being the top two culprits, Chura said. Adrien Sala, the provincial minister responsible for Manitoba Hydro, said in an emailed statement Friday the province appreciated how quickly Hydro repaired the damage and said Hydro's "built in reliability in the system allowed them to switch and quickly address the issue with little impact to customers."
