Many workers on the Trans Mountain pipeline in Kamloops appear to bringing their own place to live.

There are now more than 150 pipeline workers in the area who are from out of town, and spokesperson Kate Stebbing says many are living in RVs.

“The RV Parks, all the workers if they have their RVs – which is a popular accommodation format – they are required to be in a commercial RV park. So those are quite full, as I understand,” she says.

“SMJV [Surerus Murphy Joint Venture] is managing their workforce. So when a worker comes to town, they have to provide their management with an indication of where they’re staying. And it either has to be an approved commercial accommodation or they have to provide a lease document. So a signed lease document… It’s not a perfect system, but they’re working very hard to do it as well as possible.”

Stebbing says there may be some informal camping by workers, but none that she’s aware of.

In total, there are 220 people in the Kamloops area right now to work on the pipeline, and there will be at least 550 workers at the peak of construction in early 2021.