Wind turbine parts arrive in Eastport
After recently losing its only customer, the Port of Eastport today is welcoming a shipment of wind turbine blades that could be the first of many as the burgeoning wind energy industry gathers speed.
Eastport's port is scheduled today to unload as many as 104 General Electric blades from Brazil, according to the Bangor Daily News. At least 20 blades are slated for a 40-turbine wind farm on Rollins Mountain in the northern Penobscot County towns of Lincoln, Lee, Burlington and Winn. The wind farm is being developed by Massachusetts-based First Wind. The rest of the blades will be shipped from Eastport to industrial wind sites in Nova Scotia and Mansfield, Pa., according to the Daily News.
It's the first shipment of wind turbine components the port is receiving, but Eastport Port Authority Director Chris Gardner hopes it will handle more now that the port's largest customer, Domtar Corp., has idled its Baileyville pulp mill indefinitely. "We think we are strategically well placed to handle many more such loads in the future," Gardner told the paper.
Domtar's closing has had a ripple effect on the area's economy, including the cancellation of a Pan Am Railways train service from Baileyville and the Canadian border, which used to ship pulp bleaching chemicals to the mill and carry pulp out two or three times a week, according to the paper.
Most Recent
Most Recent
Comments