As many as 1,900 jobs coming to Hamilton

Hamilton companies have landed the major contracts in a $1.5-billion offshore wind energy project.

It’s expected the majority of 1,900 jobs to build Windstream Energy’s 300-megawatt Wolfe Island Shoals project near Kingston will land in the city as four local firms will fabricate the steel, assemble the components and transport the giant towers across Lake Ontario.

Walters Group will fabricate the structural steel, Hamilton Port Authority will provide the facilities to assemble the parts, McKeil Marine will use its tugs and barges to transport and erect the components and Bermingham Foundation Solutions will secure the massive wind towers to the lake bed.

An official announcement is coming Wednesday morning. No dollar figure for the value of the local contracts is being released.

“Windstream is looking forward to bringing this level of investment, revitalization and job growth to the Hamilton area,” said Ian Baines, the Burlington-based company’s president, in a news release obtained exclusively by The Spectator.

“We are responding directly to Finance Minister Dwight Duncan’s challenge this week to invest and create jobs in Ontario. We are here. We are stepping up to the table. We are ready to invest, the jobs are immediate and real.”

All the companies are part of a manufacturing consortium called the Lake Ontario Offshore Network, formed to lobby governments about the benefits and economic value of wind energy.

But the project doesn’t have a timeline since the Ontario government imposed a moratorium on new projects almost a year ago, saying more scientific study of the impacts of wind energy is needed.