THURSDAY, OCTOBER 4, 2018 Vol. 75, No. 40
Serving Fort St. John, B.C. and Surrounding Communities
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Old Fort Road landslide, Oct. 1, 2018.
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The province says it’s working around the clock to solve the crisis left in the wake of a landslide in the Old Fort neighbourhood outside Fort St. John. A hillside starting slipping sometime overnight on Sunday and has blocked a wide swatch of Old Fort Road, leaving roughly 50 homes stranded and without power as of Monday afternoon. The slide is also carrying away part of a gravel pit as it moves toward the Peace River. “We understand that people who live in the Old Fort community are cut off, and we are working around the clock to find a solution,” a spokesperson for the ministry of transportation and infrastructure said in an email. “We want to assure the community that we are doing everything possible to open this road as soon as it’s safe to do so.” It’s not known just how many residents are stuck in their homes, or whether any property has been damaged or is in the path of the landslide. The Peace River Regional District has issued an evacuation alert and has said it will arrange safe transportation for any residents who want to leave the area. Starting at 3 p.m., boats were available to transport people from the beach behind the house at 8711 Old Fort Loop. The boats will continue to come to the community un-
MINISTRY OF TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE Photo
Old Fort Road landslide, Sept. 30, 2018.
til all the people that want to leave have left. A bus will meet the boat at the Taylor Boat launch to take them to the reception centre. No residents had asked to be evacuated as of Monday afternoon, however, it’s not known if some residents have already left on their own accord in another way, a spokesperson said. The logistics of an evacuation plan is still being co-ordinated, and the regional district’s emergency operations centre will recommend to the board whether to issue an evacuation order, based on information from agency partners. “They’re assessing it hour by hour,” the spokesperson said. Staff are on standby and organizing to be prepared for a full evacuation, and to help residents who choose to leave during the alert. The hillside on the north bank of the Peace River
slipped sometime overnight on Sunday, Sept. 30, and continues to move. It’s damaged and covered a section of the Old Fort Road, the only road in and out of the neighbourhood. Preliminary field and air assessments were completed Sunday and the ministry has said the slide could take days to stabilize and stop before repairs can begin. “Landslide specialists are on-site this afternoon. Once they have conducted further assessments, we will be able to provide more updates,” the ministry spokesperson said. Resident Gord Pardy said the earth seems to be slowly slumping away from the hillside. “If you can imagine a lava flow coming across, but (this) has sort of come under the road and lifted the road and pushed it,” he said. See LANDSLIDE on A3
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It’s official — the LNG Canada project slated for Kitimat will be built. LNG Canada and its joint venture partners signed documents alongside government officials Tuesday morning in in the Emerald Ball Room of Fairmont Pacific Rim in Vancouver at 8:30 a.m. “The final investment decision taken by our joint venture participants shows that British Columbia and Canada, working with First Nations and local communities, can deliver competitive energy projects,” CEO Andy Calitz said in a news release late Monday night. “This decision showcases how industrial development can co-exist with environmental stewardship and Indigenous interests.” Each project partner will supply its own gas for the project, with the first LNG expected to before the middle of the next decade, according to the release. Each partner will also offtake and market its share of LNG. The cost of the investment decision wasn’t released, but LNG Canada has been estimated to cost up to $40 billion, the largest private investment in B.C. and Canadian history. That includes TransCanada’s $4.8-billion Coastal GasLink pipeline, which will transport natural gas from the Groundbirch area in Northeast B.C. to the facility in Kitimat. Two Fort St. John contractors, Surerus Pipeline and Macro Industries, have joint venture projects hired to build segments of the pipeline. The plant and pipeline will employ approximately 10,000 people at peak construction, according to a news release. There will be up to 900 people at the plant during the operations of its first phase. Martaan Westelaar, Shell’s director for integrated gas and new energies, said much work has been done since 2016, when an investment decision was postponed. The project includes a consortium with “deep LNG industry experience,” she said. “In the last two years, LNG Canada has improved its competitiveness, reduced execution uncertainty and gained significant stakeholder support,” Westelaar said in the release.
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