Monday, October 18, 2021

The Manpower Behind Niagara Power

Local 6 members are helping a defunct Niagara Falls hydroelectric plant become an educational attraction

Earlier this year, more than a century after the Niagara Parks Power Station in Niagara Falls, Ontario, first opened, Local 6 members from three CLAC signatory companies began work on-site. Their mission: turn the defunct hydroelectric plant into an educational attraction that will bring the groundbreaking historic building to life.

BCR Electric Limited performed the fibre and data communication work, which will allow the Niagara Parks team to display a multisensory digital presentation to tourists. Rankin Construction Inc. completed structural work on an elevator shaft that will bring visitors 180 feet underground and to a 2,000-foot tunnel ending at the popular Journey Behind the Falls attraction. And Besseling Mechanical Inc. was tapped to finish all plumbing, cooling, and heating updates in the building.

The station originally became operational in 1905 after four years of construction. Unlike the work being conducted on the station today, the initial phases of construction utilized little more than manpower and horsepower—literally, as four-legged beasts of burden transported materials and helped with excavation.

This project will teach thousands of Niagara Falls tourists how engineers were able to harness the fury of the falls to power Ontario and western New York throughout the 20th century. Their efforts, and the efforts of those who worked at the station during its nearly 100 years of operation, helped shape the country as we know it today.

Source: niagaraparks.com