The road to economic prosperity sometimes causes, well, the road to be blocked.
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Heavy equipment on route to Inco?s new oxygen plant tied up traffic this week. |
Several hundred drivers found that out the hard way Tuesday as two huge pieces of equipment needed for Inco Ltd.?s new $100 million oxygen plant in Copper Cliff tied up traffic for long periods of time.
The ?cold box modules? were massive, with one weighing 190,000 kilograms and the second 146,000 kilograms, said Aurel Courville, public affairs co-ordinator for Inco?s Sudbury operations.
The pieces made an interesting trip after being built at a plant in Sarnia as they were loaded onto a huge barge and transported by water to Killarney, where they were then loaded onto giant transport trucks.
The pieces were being moved by Mammoet, a company that specializes in transporting huge pieces of equipment like this.
The load was shipped by barge across Lake Huron into Georgian Bay and to Killarney.
?Transporting them by barge was deemed the easiest way to get them here, so that?s what we did,? said Courville.
The long trek from Killarney to Copper Cliff began Sunday morning and because the huge loads could only move a few kilometres an hour, traffic was tied up on Highway 69, and on a small portion of the Highway 17 southwest bypass Tuesday morning and afternoon.
Two more much smaller pieces are scheduled to leave Killarney and will again tie up traffic along Highway 69 and parts of Highway 17 today, although those delays are not expected to be nearly as severe, said Courville.
To move such large pieces of equipment, special permits and authority from the Ministry of Transportation is required. A police escort and an emergency response must also be arranged.
Tying up traffic for a few hours is bothersome to many people, but the long-term benefits for the company and community are immeasurable, said Courville.
?These are key pieces needed to build the new oxygen plant and we apologize for the short-term traffic problems,? he said.
-Keith Lacey
