Towers on horizon for windfarm

DALHOUSIE MOUNTAIN - If all things go according to plan, and they are so far, towers for the wind farm project here should start peeking over the horizon in a couple of weeks.
Reuben Burge, president of RMS Energy which is developing the project, said about 100 truckloads of equipment have been delivered so far to the site with approximately another 300 still to come.
"We hope to start assembling in two weeks, around July 15. We should be assembling one per day for the next 34 days…If everything works out we'd like to be online in the first weeks of October."
Once the 81-metre towers, with their 77-metre diameter blades, are up, the process jumps to a different step before the project starts putting power to the grid.
"There's a lot of testing first."
Getting that much equipment to rural Pictou County from points around the globe is a time-consuming process, Burge said. Parts are coming here from Quebec, Brazil and the U.S.
"Permitting is very awkward. A lot of it is done on a daily basis.... There's a lot of people to deal with. It's an ongoing effort between the Department of Transportation, our side and the trucking company."
Truckers aren't the only ones working on the project at this point.
Burge said there is a workforce of about 40 people for phase one.
"We've hired local people and we use our own equipment. We do our own cement on site so we don't have cement on the roads."
He expects to create "eight or nine full-time jobs" once the wind farm is producing.
Burge said it is important to him that the project has a healthy relationship with those affected.
"I appreciate everybody's patience with it. I appreciate that people are taking it so well…. There seems to be a good relationship."