WINNIPEG - Manitoba Hydro says it’s cutting its workforce at the Keeyask Generating Station construction camp as part of a strategy to avoid the spread of COVID-19. The crown corporation says five of the several hundred workers who’d been stationed at the site, six and a half hours northeast of Lake Winnipeg, have tested positive for COVID-19.
Hydro says they had to use a private lab to test all 764 staff members at the remote site, and verified any results that were unclear with the help of the Cadham Provincial Lab in Winnipeg. Isolation and contact tracing is being implemented for cases that were not clear, and band leaders at the four First Nations in the area where some Keeyask workers lived are concerned some of them may have brought COVID-19 back to their home communities without realizing it.
Hydro pointed out that plans for the temporary staff reduction were already underway, and Hydro president and CEO Jay Grewal says based on the latest advice from health officials, sending some staff home is the best course of action for the project to stay safe and secure.
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