Ergon crews repair power lines on Captain Cook Highway
Ergon crews repair power lines on Captain Cook Highway
Thursday December 4 2014, 5:20pm
By Brooke Mills
Ergon Energy finally had the chance on Tuesday to replace conductors along a 1.5-kilometre section of the Captain Cook Highway just south of Port Douglas after postponing for months due to ospreys nesting on the power poles.
The job was part of an upgrade to high voltage protection equipment along that section of the network near the Trezise Road turnoff.
The job had been postponed until osprey chicks in a nest atop one of the power poles had been old enough to move out on their own.
"The chicks had left and the work was able to be performed without disturbing the nest, where it was feasible and safe to do so," said Mark Timmerman, Ergon's Corporate Communications Manager for the Far North.
The project involved multiple depot locations, with 27 staff in total utilising eight elevated work platforms, bucket trucks and two cranes.
These measures were put in place by Ergon in the hope to minimise inconvenience to customers via reducing power interruption time for the job. Power was restored around one and a half hours earlier than anticipated.
An Ergon environmental officer said the birds had most likely established a family network across several nests on powerpoles along the road.
"The osprey predominantly eats fish, this is why the nest is near a river. There are another two nests close by on power poles too - I suspect this nest is offspring from the original nest about four spans north," the officer said.
Mr Timmerman said the job had ended with a good outcome for all with reports that most customers were happy with the planned works.
