Pieces of the North Coast for California

The streets of California may soon be paved with gravel from the North Coast as a gravel mine planned for Portland Canal begins operation. Gravel taken from the mine is to be shipped own the coast to California in a project that is expected to run over 18 years, creating up to 10-50 non seasonal full time jobs by the time it’s on line.

The Daily had full information on the project in Thursday’s paper.

NORTH COAST GRAVEL MINE TO SERVE CALIFORNIA
By Sarah Fox
The Daily News
Thursday, July 13, 2006
Page One

A Vancouver based company, Ascot Resources Ltd., had got a green light from the Province to go ahead with their plans for a Swamp Point sand and gravel mine and ship loading facility on the coast between Prince Rupert and Stewart.

The mine will be located on the Portland Canal, 50 kilometres south of Stewart, B. C. and should be able to produce 3.3 million tones annually for 18 years.

Now that Ascot has received an Environmental Assessment certificate from the Ministry of Environment Assessment, they are free to pursue project permits required for development in mid-august.

“What we’re trying to do and it’s not confirmed yet, but we’re working on a small contract for this year and we’re still working on the large contracts,” said Hans Smit, Ascot’s Swamp Point project manager.

“The larger scale project is still not for sure going to happen in 2007 but we’re working hard to try and make that happen.”
Smit says that the Ascot sand and gravel mine is no different from sand and gravel pits that can be seen beside highways elsewhere in the province but that over time they do want to build the mine into a very large one.

“The design capacity would be three million tones which is a lot bigger than any of the ones along the highway,” said Smit.

“It’s ten times the size of any regular gravel pit.

“It’s still producing some kind of stuff just way more of it and shipping it much further distances.”

Studies done have indicated that there is 45.8 million tones of sand and gravel at the site, which could support a 3.3 million tonne per year operation, providing sand and gravel to California and other local Pacific markets.

“The market we designed the project around is California and they used 213 million tones of sand and gravel last year and there’s areas along the coast where we can deliver it cheaper from British Columbia than you can truck it in from in-land California,” said Smit.


Ascot estimates that 20 to 50 non-seasonal full time jobs will be created at the Swamp Point facility, however, Smit says they can’t really predict when those jobs will be created.

“When we start this year, that will be a contract, so that will mean a few months work and hopefully by next year we start securing long term contracts and we’ll start to build on that with employment,” said Smit.

“We can’t really hang our hats on when it will start but next year we hope to build on those contracts.”

The Swamp Point project life span is 18 years, however Smit says that there are areas around Swamp Point that could possibly be developed, further extending the life of the project.

The environmental assessment conducted by independent consultants on behalf of Ascot determined the Swamp Point mind will have no significant environmental, social or health effects on the surrounding area.

“We designed it right from the start to avoid environmental problems which makes it easier than having to make a 50 year old site meet today’s environmental standards.” Said Smit.

“Also, the site is fairly easy to mitigate, we’re not working in fish streams or anything.”

Smit also said that Ascot is not using any chemicals or metals that would contaminate the run off and silt that is produced from the mine.