KIBBY TOWNSHIP – The safety record of the Kibby Wind Power project was celebrated at Sugarloaf today with employees of Reed & Reed and TransCanada, together with other contractors and suppliers, local community leaders, and officials from the Maine Department of Labor, and Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). Reed & Reed was awarded Safety & Health Achievement Recognition Program (SHARP) Certification – the first such award for a wind power project in the United States – following the project’s national recognition for health and safety practices and the project’s successful achievement of working 500,000 safe hours without an accident.
Kibby Wind Power is being developed by TransCanada and is the largest wind power project in Maine. Phase one of the project has resulted in 22 wind turbines, with another 22 slated for phase two. The project is currently providing 66 megawatts of clean, renewable power to the grid. Phase two anticipates an additional 66 megawatts. The total project will provide enough power to service 50,000 homes.
Earlier this spring, Maine’s Gov. John Baldacci recognized Reed & Reed, the Woolwich-based general contracting firm, for its efforts in providing a safe and healthy work environment for employees.
“For more than 80 years, Reed & Reed has been a leader in construction contracting and engineering, and providing good jobs for Maine workers,” said Gov. Baldacci. “Reed and Reed is a regional leader in wind power construction, and they have incorporated safety and injury prevention in every process of their work.”
Jackson Parker, Reed & Reed’s CEO hosted the celebration. “The SHARP Award is a tremendous honor for our employees. It recognizes the commitment each person makes, on a project like Kibby, to themselves and their co-workers. And to be the first wind power project in the nation to earn SHARP status tells the world that companies from Maine can compete at every level.”
Bob Burdick, Reed & Reed’s safety director has been instrumental in implementing a company-wide safety program, with daily measures to ensure that projects like Kibby are highly efficient and accident-free. Burdick said, “We have a culture of safety. By committing to comprehensive safety practices, and regular communication on the job site, we make sure everyone goes home safely, every day. Here at Kibby, the employees did an outstanding job every single day, under the direction of Greg Letourneau Project Superintendent and Ted Clark, the project’s safety manager.”
Letourneau and Clark, both Maine natives, have been with Reed & Reed for many years. Under their direction, each construction day is guided by specific plans, and each day begins with a job safety meeting. Both men are extremely proud of the results at Kibby, including the fact that in 500,000 “safe-work hours” the job boasts no accidents and no lost time.
Clark commented on the massive scope of building a project like Kibby. “There was blasting of rock. There’s logging and trucking operations. We oversee electrical work, power line installation, building roads that access the turbines and erecting the turbines. We move a lot of equipment around, which is very specialized work. Every aspect of constructing a project of this magnitude requires significant attention and coordination so that projects are completed on-time, on-budget and without any accidents.”
Maine’s Commissioner of Labor, Laura Fortman commented on the SHARP recognition. “Reed & Reed is part of an elite group of Maine employers who have demonstrated high standards and industry leadership in creating a safe and healthy workplace for employees.”
The Safety and Health Achievement Recognition Program (SHARP) offers incentives to private sector employers that take a proactive approach to workplace safety. The SHARP certificate is granted to employers who have demonstrated exemplary achievements in workplace safety and health by receiving a comprehensive safety and health consultation visit, correcting all workplace safety and health hazards, adopting and implementing effective safety and health management systems, and agreeing to request further consultative visits if major changes in working conditions or processes occur that may introduce new hazards.
Reed & Reed, Inc is one of northern New England’s largest and most versatile general contractors. Founded as a bridge building firm in 1928 by Captain Josiah W. Reed and his son Carlton Day Reed, the company has prospered under four generations of family leadership to build a long-standing reputation as one of Northern New England’s top heavy contractors. In the last decade, the company has emerged as a regional leader in wind power construction, having built the first industrial wind power project in Maine in 2006, followed by the construction of numerous other large scale projects throughout New England in the years since.
The Bulldog describes itself as a news outlet. From what I was taught, news entails reporting of facts without bias. It should not be cheerleading or propaganda. This is what editorials and opinion pieces are for.
The above piece on TransCanada and Reed & Reed reads like a press release from the company, and I suspect it is. In any case, it is cheerleading and propaganda. There is no news here, in the general interest sense.
I’m pretty sure that both TransCanada and Reed & Reed can afford to place their own paid advertising on the Bulldog. Therefore I respectfully request that you remove this article from the news section, or, if it reflects the unquestioning approval of the Bulldog’s editors, move it to the opinion section.
“There was blasting of rock. There’s logging and trucking operations. We oversee electrical work, power line installation, building roads that access the turbines and erecting the turbines. We move a lot of equipment around, which is very specialized work. Every aspect of constructing a project of this magnitude requires significant attention and coordination so that projects are completed on-time, on-budget and without any accidents.”
While I’ll commend any company for its good safety record, I think the preceding statement gives a hint, from the contractor’s own mouth, as to just how huge the scope is of projects such as Kibby. The environmental impacts cannot be ignored. And while it’s naive to expect a ‘zero’ impact from any project which generates power, industrial wind seems to be an energy source with the highest negative effects for the lowest return. The economic and scientific facts are available… FACTS, without hype or propagande, and offered from expets with no financial gains or losses to be had from Industrial Wind developments. I urge the readers of the Daily Bulldog to avail themselves of the resources available, so that they can educate themselves on this misguided plan to cover more than 300 miles of our mountaintops with these turbines and their infrastructure. I also urge the Bulldog to assign a reporter to seriously look into this looming change to our natural resources and our unique way of life. If you need a place to start on your quest for knowledge, you may contact me at roomtomove@tds.net, or check out http://www.highlandmts.org. Respectfully submitted, Karen Pease, Lexington Twp., Maine
500,000 safe hours without an accident.is a huge accomplishment. Congrates Reed & Reed and TransCanada for this safety milestone.Keep working safe.