SIX NATIONS – The Six Nations of the Grand River Development Corporation (SNGRDC) has taken 40 days to perform community engagement meetings since Thursday, October, 19, to collect rapport and answer questions regarding their plan to take advantage of the unfinished Niagara Reinforcement Line.
The line is a 76 km transmission line that has been sitting near-completion for over 10 years with the projects final connection point being the Middleport Transformer station. This will require routing along the highway 6 bypass in Caledonia.
SNGRDC Matt Jamieson said that the information collected from the community will be made public during the sixth community engagement meeting Tuesday, November 21.
“All feedback that we receive during this process and the final report that we develop as a result of this engagement will be made public,” said Jamieson. “We do this because we have an obligation to be transparent with the community about what we’re doing, and we take it all very seriously.”
The SNGRDC has proposed a three-phase bundle solution which begins with energizing the line after completing the remaining transmission work, acquiring 25% ownership of the line, and finally optimizing renewable energy opportunities as 300MW of renewable energy will be set aside and valid for 15 years.
The construction will take approximately 5 months to complete, and can begin in spring and have commercial operation in fall of 2018. It will also create 25-35 new and local employment opportunities during construction. The overall benefit of finishing the project will enable Six Nations to play a leading role in how renewable energy projects are developed in the future and lead to more employment and investment.
“In the past we’ve always sort of been a party at the outside of the border looking in, wanting to be a player, wanting to be a part of the discussion, and now it will be rotated. We will be the ones who invite developers to our table.”
No commitments have been made on this project as of yet and the next engagement is scheduled for Thursday, November 30, from 7-9 p.m., at the Iroquois Lacross Arena.
