As the COVID-19 pandemic wears on it has caused delays for some work on the Trans-Mountain Expansion project in Kamloops and a company spokesperson says it wants to ensure it moves forward in a safe manner.
Allie Hounsell says what it decided to do was focus on areas where construction was already underway or the critical path items to ensure it has the measures in place to safely continue that construction.
“So, in light of the attention that we were applying to those existing areas of work, we decided that the work in Kamloops planned for April could be pushed ahead a couple of months without any overall impacts to the project schedule.”
Hounsell says it will be ready to mobilize once June rolls around. She says there is additional work going on in the area at the Black Pines pump station and it continues to work on the Kamloops terminal as well.
“But, basically our focus over the two weeks prior to that, the last couple of weeks of March, was to look at the changing situation with COVID-19 and ensure that we could continue the safe construction to the expansion project.”
Hounsel says there are a number of things that it has in place to allow it to continue the safe operation of the existing pipeline, which is a critical piece of infrastructure for all Canadians, as well as continue work on the expansion project.
“The situation was changing rapidly and there were a number of guidelines and rules coming into place with different jurisdictions and so we needed to focus on that with our contractors that were already working as well as our existing operations to say how can we continue to do these things and do it safely.”
She says on Monday of next week, there will be a specialist coming in to salvage cryptogamic crust in Kenna Cartwright Park. Housnell says it is like a thin layer on top of the soil that has got mosses and lichen and algae that are important for building local soil.
“We’re collecting that starting next week and it basically goes into cold storage for when we do go through and do pipeline construction and we do the reclamation.”
Speaking to NL News, Kamloops City Councillor Denis Walsh says the two month delay makes sense given the world we live in right now.
“I’m impressed that they were able to reschedule it and I think it’s going to be, I am hoping we are going to be through this by a large degree by June, and businesses will start reopening and those workers will basically be able to give us a bit of an economic lift.”
Hounsell says the delay here in Kamloops will not impact the project timeline or its $12.6-billion cost.
