Manitoba Hydro Conducting Safety Inspection of 100s of Transmission Towers

June 28, 2017

Following the collapse of five hydro towers between February and May, Manitoba has begun reviewing its construction procedures and inspecting towers, reports the CBC. The five towers had all collapsed while being assembled.

“I think when you have five instances happening, that there’s a system that’s not working,” Manitoba Federation of Labour President Kevin Rebeck told CBC’s Vera-Lynn Kubinec and Katie Nicholson. “We need to make sure that people are given the supports they need to do their jobs in a way that things are done safely.”

The construction company installing the towers has attributed the cause of the most recent collapse to a sleeve that was installed improperly. Sleeves anchor guy wires in place. 

“We immediately took the entire project out of service,” said a spokesperson. “We stood down all the employees, didn’t allow them to approach or climb the towers, and proceeded to bring on one of our X-ray teams to X-ray all of the sleeves on the project.” Five other exceptions were identified and corrected. In the last two years the company has raised about 5,000 similar towers without incident.

Manitoba Federation of Labour concerns were prompted in part by a recent transmission tower collapse in Newfoundland and Labrador that killed two workers. The tower was being raised by another firm, and was part of a $300-million project to construct a new transmission line from Bay d’Espoir to the Avalon Peninsula.

Read CBC’s coverage in Manitoba (www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/hydro-tower-collapse-manitoba-labour-federation-1.4170464) and Newfoundland (www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/tower-collapse-jared-moffat-1.4171009).

Photo source: IBEW Local 2034.