The construction phase of the Fairview Container Terminal continues along the Prince Rupert waterfront. And while the public can no longer get a day to day view of the progress (unless you happen to have a boat), the face of the Fairview area is changing day by day.
In Tuesday's edition, the Daily News visited the site and took its readers on a tour, providing a an update on one of Prince Rupert's most anticipated projects.
PLAIN SAILING SO FAR AS PORT SHAPES UP
By Sarah Fox
The Daily News
Tuesday, August 15, 2006
Pages One and Three
Construction at the Fairview container port is ticking along on time and staying on budget, says Port Authority representative Barry Bartlett.
“We’re quite pleased with the progress and how everything is going,” said Bartlett.
“We’re finding that with our partners, the city and the federal and provincial governments, that great partnerships have been formed and everybody is working together for a common goal.
“Everybody is supportive and everybody is working together in dealing with the problem solving that’s going along.
“One of the great reasons I think we’re doing so well in terms of being on time and on budget is because of how supportive everybody has been and how well we’ve been working together.”
To date, the most significant construction at the port has been the extension of the wharf by 20 metres wide and 187 metres long, to accommodate the super-post panamax shipping vessels that are set to arrive at the terminal late September 2007.
“Basically, where we are is we’re installing 90 piles, which will hold up the wharf,” said Bartlett.
“Each of the piles are 120 feet long, three-feet in diameter and this week we’ll reach the halfway point where we’ll have installed about 45 piles.”
Instead of the traditional hammering down of the piles, the 90 piles are being vibrated down to the bedrock to minimize the noise in the area.
The piles are then drilled, like a screw, eight feet into the bedrock when each pile is filled with cement.
The second area of construction at the port is the demolition of the CN railway line.
Ninety per cent of it has been demolished to date and they have to demolish it all because they need to be upgraded and they need to run close to the port,” said Bartlett.
“We’re going to be running about 20,000 feet of track when this is finished.”
Installing this amount of railway track will make the use of trucks at the port minimal.
“It’s going to be straight from the container vessels to the rail-car and from rail-car to container vessel,” said Bartlett. “That’s one of the strengths here.”
“At the other West Coast ports, congestion is a problem and that’s from the transferring of containers to trucks and then to warehouses and then to trucks again to shuttle to another train area – so with this, there really won’t be any trucks involved and we’ll circumvent the congestion problem.”
The construction crews are well on their way to completing the installation of armour rock, which are huge boulders that will push up against the edge of the wharf, under water, to reinforce the structure.
The armour rock is needed because when the container vessels come to dock, they use thrusters on the sides of the ships that can move ocean floor silt around, potentially causing a wharf to become unstable.
The boulders hold the wharf and silt in place.
“Interesting enough, these boulders as a by-product, are creating aquatic habitat,” said Bartlett.
“Before all that was there, there was silt … putting the boulders in will create lots of hiding places and nooks and crannies for sea life.”
On the terminal side, the port crews are continuing to rip up and demolish all the old pavement so that new gas and power lines can be installed.
Bartlett says the old pavement will be recycled and used when they lay the new pavement over the expanded port.
So far, $80 million dollars in construction contracts have been awarded at the port with a completion date of June 2007.
The first cranes are to arrive in July 2007 and phase one of Fairview Terminal is set to be operational by late summer, early fall in 2007.
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