VANCOUVER - A heavy-lift helicopter will be used early next week to fly the pieces of a massive industrial wind turbine - a first for Metro Vancouver - to the top of the Olympic Express chairlift at Grouse Mountain.

Three 37-metre blades - as long as three city buses and big enough to be visible from parts of Vancouver - have been shipped by freighter from Denmark and are being transferred to a barge to be positioned in Indian Arm.

The 65-metre main tower is coming from Anacortes, Wash. A Sikorsky S-64 helicopter has been chartered from Canadian Air-Crane of Delta to conduct the operation.

Situated at an elevation of 4,100 feet or 1,230 metres, the turbine is expected to meet 20 per cent of the ski resort's power needs. Tourists will be able to ride an elevator inside the tower to a viewing area 58 metres off the ground.

The turbine is not without controversy.

North Vancouver district council narrowly approved the project, which is too small to warrant a provincial environmental assessment process, in a 4-3 vote last October, with Mayor Richard Walton in favour.

Issues debated included noise, esthetics, and impact on wildlife. The peregrine falcon and seven species of bat are among the creatures that could be impacted by the turbine.

Grouse Mountain's website notes birds could be at "high" risk in cloudy and foggy conditions.

Grouse Mountain spokesman Chris Dagenai described the three white fibreglass composite blades as "astronomically large" but insisted any wildlife impact would be nominal. Staff will conduct daily monitoring and shut down the blades as necessary.

He argued in an interview that wind turbines are a badly needed form of alternative energy, and that global warming from reliance on fossil fuels has a greater impact on the natural world than the wind turbine will.

"It's meant to be an iconic symbol for Vancouver, educational and inspirational and something that gives people hope for alternative energy in Vancouver," he said of the turbine.

The facility, with a maximum generating capacity of 1.5 megawatts, should be built by August or September and producing power in early 2010. Costs of the project is not being released.

Dagenai said that in Vancouver, the turbine would be most visible from Locarno Beach and Point Grey.