Work is steadily progressing on the 2016 International Plowing Match (IPM) site located near Harriston.
“It is exciting to see how the site is progressing,” said IPM chair Ron Faulkner during an Aug. 10 press conference at the site. “The lay of the land allows the tented city to be in close proximity to the plowing venue and parking lots. The partnership the IPM has with Hydro One benefits Hydro by allowing them to be part of the community and the match to lower its economic scale,” he added.
Chair of the tented city and RV park Bill White, said, “There will be between 1,000 to 1,200 RVs on the site. Some of the sites will be serviced and others will not. We are expecting an economic boom in Minto and Wellington County during and after the match.”
Mark Harding, chair of the tented city, explained the tents would begin going up in two weeks along with the roads and the area would start to resemble a tented city.
Between 10 to 15 Hydro One employees will be working on the site with work expected to be complete in two to three weeks. A temporary work headquarters that accommodates 15 to 20 employees occupies one part of the IPM site. Crews will be staying in the area during the match replacing end-of-life poles. Poles are tested for age and condition and replaced when necessary. After the match is over, Hydro One crews remove all the electrical equipment and transport it to the site of the next year’s plowing match. The only pieces of equipment not reused are transformers which are recycled.
Hydro One Listowel area operations supervisor and line manager Scott Eveland, has worked as part of the Hydro One team on three different plowing match sites.
“It’s a unique opportunity and community partnership for Hydro One and the community. The city is built from the ground up in a safe and effective way. Hydro One has worked on many different types of terrains, soil types and various amounts of budgets over the years with the IPM,” Eveland said.
Plowing matches are one of the ways that Hydro One can safely train their apprentices as lines are dead. Apprentices, identified by their green safety helmets, are briefed from the job plan folder before beginning a task. Each one must complete 8,000 hours of training to become a Journeyman 1 in four years. Apprentices’ home towns range from Owen Sound to Windsor.
Hydro One zone and project supervisor Drew Labadie explained the set up of electrical service at the plowing match site, which began two weeks ago.
“The Hydro One truck you would normally see working on hydro lines is a Radial Boom Derrick. For the IPM an employee-invented pole setter is being used to install the poles into predug holes. This unit can install poles up to 100 feet in length. Poles at the site will be 75 feet in length. To date there have been 125 poles placed,” Labadie said.
Site plans call for the use of approximately 300 poles, 80 transformers, 71 street lights and 20 to 30km of line. Transformers can range in weight from 100 to 400kg. Each 100kg transformer can service two tents in the tented city.
Hydro One’s tent will showcase large equipment, educational experiences including forestry management and the popular wheel of conservation. Local staff will be on hand to welcome visitors and answer their questions.
The International Plowing Match runs Sept. 20 to 24.
