This being the first of June means work on the Trans Mountain Pipeline expansion is going to be going full force in Kamloops soon.
Ian Anderson, President and CEO of Trans Mountain Corporation was on the NL Morning news and said the preliminary work is set to get going right away. “This we’ll be starting with mobilizing. We’ll be setting up our construction yard, preparing for work up at Ord Road, north of the airport, we’ve got a little bit of clearing to do on that right of way.”
“We’ve got to build a bypass road that the city has approved on that location so that we can manage traffic efficiently. So, the initial work will appear more civil work and preparation.”
“We’ll be doing clearing and pipelining work by the end of the month and by I would say some time in July, probably late July we’ll be approaching the Thompson River just south of the airport there to our crossing an our preparation for our crossing there this fall.”
Anderson says work in the Kamloops area is about a month to month and a half behind because of COVID-19.
He says they wanted to make sure all of the protocols and procedures in place.
He says of the people that have been working through the pandemic – none have tested positive.
Anderson also pointed to how important community involvement is. “Kamloops, as a city, was one of the first ones to come on board with us and really agree we can work through all the local related permitting and logistics and provide some benefit back to the community.”
He added being involved with the local Indigenous group was paramount. “Our relationship with Tk’emlups First Nation’s been excellent for many, many years and they were very early supporters of our and so far we’re issued millions of dollars worth of contracts to Tk’emlups businesses and joint ventures.”
It’s not just ties with Tk’emlups First Nation that go back a long time. “TRU, of course, a very critical trade school in the province and we’re very happy to partner with them and we’ve got a twenty year relationship to provide them with hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of scholarships and trade development at TRU, so those community relationships have been key all along.”
Anderson stressed how important it is to have community involvement saying the company isn’t naive enough to think a project of this size doesn’t effect people’s lives, and wanted to get on those discussions early.
