Half a century after being built, Wesleyville may finally generate power

Minister of Energy and Electrification Stephen Lecce (Right) and David Piccini, Northumberland-Peterborough South MPP (left)
Photo by Dan Jones, Northumberland 89.7 News, LJI

By Cecilia Nasmith

Port Hope

The Wesleyville hydro station, which never actually produced hydro after it was built almost 50 years ago, is on the road to becoming a nuclear-generating plant.

Almost half a century after it was built and then left vacant, the Wesleyville hydro station could become the fourth nuclear-generating plant in Ontario.

The announcement was made Wednesday morning in one of its vacant buildings, with Port Hope Mayor Olena Hankivsky, Ontario Power Generation President and Chief Executive Officer Nicolle Butcher, Minister of Energy and Electrification Stephen Lecce and Northumberland-Peterborough South MPP (and Minister of Labour, Immigration, Training and Skills Development) David Piccini in attendance.

“Remnants of the incomplete Wesleyville generaetion station serve as a reminder of a very different past – engagement collaboration and partnership were not prioritized like today,” Butcher said to the group gathered on an upper floor in the cold, cavernous building.

Lecce described the partners behind the new initiative as a dream team.

“Last November, I asked the OPG to begin discussions with municipal and Indigenous leaders to gauge support for new energy generation here in Port Hope,” Lecce said.

Wesleyville was constructed in the 1970s as an oil-powered power-generation plant, a project which required the acquisition of a great deal of land in the little hamlet and the vacating of a number of homes. Because of global pressures in the oil market, however, the plant was never used for that purpose.

The powerhouse and smokestacks stand silent witness to that wasted effort, he said.