District of Kitimat Council tonight (March 4, 2013) approved building permits for the KMLNG work camp at the old West Fraser Eurocan paper mill site.
The first phase of the camp, called 1A will have 155 beds, followed by a second camp, called 1B with 145 beds. Council also approved a second phase, Camp 2, which will have an additional 300 beds. The camp will consist of single-storey, 44 bed dormitories, similar to those now being used at the Rio Tinto Alcan Kitimat Modernization project, a couple of kilometres away.
“This camp will support the construction of the LNG terminal,” KM LNG’s Ron Link told council, “the focus right now is a 600 man camp. Beyond that, if the final investment decision is approved, it will eventually grow to 2,800.
To build the camp KMLNG will have to demolish some of the remaining blow pipes and chip screening facilites that are there.
“Under the regulations it is a contaminated site and we have a company called Constega Rovers that are participating in sampling the site. It is certainly our attention to clean it up.
If the full 2,800 bed camp is built, the remaining part of the facility will be directly west of the current proposed campsite.
Later in the meeting council continued to debate the contenious issue of an over all camp policy for the District of Kitimat and voted to instruct district staff to “bring back a calendar with the process and dates for discussing camp policy.”
Staff would prepare a document indicating where camps are presently permitted within the District of Kitimat followd by a committee of the whole meeting dedicated to the pros and cons of camps within the district and perferred locations, services provided by the district and size limits.
There will likely be both a public town hall and a “public meeting” of council to discussion the issues later in the spring,
The debate was prompted bya proposal from the PTI Group to build a large “lodge style” work camp within the boundaries of the residential part of Kitimat, near the hospital and City Centre Mall. The PTI proposal would require amendments to both zoning and the Official City Plan. The KMLNG and RTA camps are in areas zoned for industrial use and would not be affected by a change to the official plan for the residential area.