CARROT RIVER, PORCUPINE PLAIN — SaskPower has announced that they will be decommissioning their facilities in Carrot River and Porcupine Plain, while building new facilities in Nipawin and Hudson Bay.
“This has to do with changing technologies over time, advancements in how we do business,” said Joel Cherry, SaskPower spokesperson. “We’re bringing our technology and employees together in a way that’s most efficient.”
Cherry said there are no layoffs expected, as staff run portable office spaces equipped for standard jobs.
“Quite often they’ll carry the necessary materials and equipment with them to conduct the repairs. If there is a larger outage the equipment... will be stored, if not in Carrot River, a centralized location like Nipawin.”
Nick Wood, Porcupine Plain’s mayor, said council feels that they are being looked after as well as can be expected with no member of staff on location in the community.
“While we, as a council, advocated to have manpower returned to our town, and would prefer to have staff residing closer to town, we are confident SaskPower will provide safe and reliable service to our residents as they move forward with their changes,” Wood said.
In a letter to the Town of Carrot River, SaskPower said that they would be closing the Carrot River office by April 2021, as well as selling their equipment storage property.
The storage location has been utilized as a secure storage site for SaskPower contractors.
Carrot River council read the letter at their January council meeting.
According to Kevin Trew, the town’s administrator, while the office closure brings little worry, he said they are “very concerned” about the selling of the property and what that would mean for the community in the long-term.
“If all of the storage of the equipment is located in Nipawin or another location what would entice the contractors who work for SaskPower… to be in Carrot River and utilize the hospitality and services such as the hotel and restaurants,” Trew asked.
Trew said their primary concern is the potential delayed response with SaskPower work and the impact on industries such as Edgewood Forest Products, Premier Tech Horticulture, and the various seed plants
“These customers have upgraded their SaskPower services in recent years and they have, what I would assume, a pretty hefty infrastructure attached to it,” Trew said. “What if there needs to be an upgrade and need for equipment that isn’t being stored close?”
Cherry said that while the equipment for larger outages would be held in Nipawin, the response time would not be significantly impacted.
“Larger outages require more extensive repairs and take a bit longer to do in the first place,” Cherry said. “For any of the communities involved, we’re not going to see a reduction in service.”
He pointed to their adaptations during the pandemic as evidence for their ability to work remotely efficiently.
“We had more people who were working away from office locations in the first place, so we’ve done a lot more remote dispatching and we proved we can do it effectively. We haven’t seen any decrease in response times during the pandemic, even though crews haven’t been dispatched from the office.”
