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 District 5Plenty of work, energy projects still up in the air (May 2007) By Mike Spiruda, Member Representative This past winter wasn’t gangbusters like the winter of 05/06 but work remained steady for the local membership. The upcoming summer construction season should be fairly active. Sterling Crane will be busy with a shutdown at Duke Energy’s Pine River gas plant near Chetwynd in May or June. Dawson Construction will have another busy season in the utility sector. There are numerous roads to build, widen and pave, along with another four-laning project from Fort St. John to Mile 54. The city will also break ground on the new $30 million Enerplex sports facility which will include an Olympic-size speed skating oval, NHL- and Olympic-sized hockey rinks and a running track. The recently released B.C. Energy Plan has once again brought to the forefront the Site C Dam which could supply another 900 megawatts of power. B.C. Hydro is only at the second stage of a four-stage process it must undergo before construction could ever begin. It is now consulting with First Nations, the Alberta government and affected communities in the Northeast. No timeline has been set to complete this process. Consultations must be finalized before Hydro moves on to steps three and four —licensing, permitting and, ultimately, the final decision. Because the provincial government has adopted a policy of zero net greenhouse gas emissions for all new power generation projects, they will flood that 30-mile-long mud slide on the Peace River one day. On another front, many Local 115 members and other pipeline craft union members received a letter last fall from Ledcor inviting them to work in Alberta on various pipeline installations. Some of our members were quite offended that a company they’ve never had anything to do with somehow got access to their names and addresses. It’s obvious that many companies out there today would love to have professional Operating Engineers on their work sites, but the vast majority of Operating Engineers just can’t accept a Christian Labour Association agreement. Have a safe season! |
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