Lakeview Had Long History In Mississauga
Posted June 12, 2006 12:00 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
The Four Sisters have basically been orphans since the Lakeview Generating Station shut down for good on April 30, 2005, part of an ongoing plan to reduce Ontario’s dependence on polluting coal fired plants.
It’s a cliché to call anything the end of an era, but in the minds of many, that’s exactly what their destruction became.
When the smokestacks fell at 7:30am Monday, they brought down a remarkable piece of Mississauga history with them.
Lakeview was the first 30,000 kilowatt eight boiler thermal electric plant in the world, and when construction started on 52 acres of Mississauga’s waterfront back in June 1958, the city was mostly known as a sleepy town near Toronto.
But when it went online on June 20, 1962, suddenly everyone knew where and what one of the most remarkable areas of the G.T.A. was all about.
The total cost of the plant: $274 million, a price that today would seem like a bargain.
With all that coal fired energy being produced something was needed to dissipate the smoke churned out by the powerful boilers. And that’s where the Four Sisters came in. The smokestacks measured 146 metres each and what started out as an eyesore for many was transformed over the years into a local landmark.
Sailors used the stacks as a navigational beacon. Airplanes would mark them as easily recognized beacons on the ground. And the locals saw them as simply part of the scenery.
But by the 1980’s, there were signs the sibling smokestacks may have outlived their usefulness.
The Pickering and Bruce nuclear units could provide cheaper electricity without the pollution effects and Lakeview’s production was scaled back, operating only when supply was outstripped by demand, usually in the summer months.
By 1993, four units were decommissioned, and despite attempts to make the facility more environmentally friendly, a decade later came the order for its closure.
But it didn’t disappear. Out of the ashes of the energy generator came Lakeview Park, and its lands are part of the Lake Ontario Waterfront Trail.
In its heyday, the plant produced an estimated 215 terrawatt hours or electricity, enough to power all of Ontario’s hydro needs for about 1.4 years.
The end of the Sisters is the final stroke in putting a power-ful landmark to rest. And while just about everyone acknowledges we’ve got to clear the air in this province’s increasingly smog filled summers, many who watched the stacks come down on Monday will agree it was worth the energy.
