Podunk Below the Masthead (Thursday, March 4, 2010)

The trucks keep rolling through the city from the container port and the Daily News tells their story, Roosevelt parents stand their ground to keep their school open and the search for the city's centennial time capsule is over, some of the items of note from the Thursday news files.

Daily News, front page, headline story
TEN THOUSAND TRUCKS AND COUNTING... -- Thursday's paper takes a look at the impact of the Fairview container port on the local trucking industry, which every day hauls a variety of containers between the port and the Quickload Terminal inspection location on Ridley Island. 10,000 containers have passed through the city's downtown are on their way to Ridley since the port opened, with the promise of more to come with the addition of a third vessel
and planned expansion for the terminal.

With a message  delivered with passion, School District 52 officials will be under no misconceptions on the thoughts of the parents of Roosevelt School, the third in the districts consultations took place this week at Roosevelt and the Daily News outlined the passion brought to the discussion by local parents, students and teachers.

Children's Fest is set for Saturday March 6th at the civic centre and Thursday's paper outlines some of the behind the scenes work that has gone into making sure that this years event takes place as smoothly as possible.

The Sports section features a look at the PRSS Junior Girls squad as they prepare for the provincials in Abbotsford, a look at the BC Winter Games in Terrace also grabs some of the sports page space.

(Archive for Daily News Articles for March 4, 2010 )

The Northern View
No new items were featured on the Northern View website for Thursday.

CFTK TV 7
A lesson learned from missing capsule incident -- The search for Prince Rupert's missing time capsule has been called off, with the date of its would be celebrated opening coming up fast, local officials have accepted the fate that the capsule will not be found. With a new capsule set to be created to be opened at the city's 200th birthday in March of 2110, the vow is to learn from our mistakes of 1971 (see article here)

CBC News British Columbia, Daybreak North
Daybreak did not broadcast out of the Northwest on Thursday, so there is no new material posted to the website.

Daily News, front page, headline story
Ten thousand trucks and counting...
By Monica Lamb-Yorski
The Daily News
Thursday, March 4, 2010

Ten thousand trucks hauling containers have now made their way to Prince Rupert’s container port since it opened in September 2007.

Murray Kristoff, owner of Kristoff Trucking, expanded his business when the container port was announced. His business had the honour of hauling the 10,000th truck to the port on March 1.

“We started hauling to the port in January 2008 and the business has been steadily growing ever since. We haul daily, the biggest items being lumber and aluminum ingots,” Kristoff said, adding that the 10,000th haul was a Quickload lumber container.

An average week sees his company hauling 90 containers. The highest so far has been 160.

In September 2009, they also began hauling containers with fish products inside.

From Watson Island to Fairview terminal the turn around is an hour and a quarter and if the trucks are bringing logs from Timber Baron’s operation in the industrial park, it’s around 55 minutes.

Reflecting on the last two years, Kristoff admitted that he still thinks the growth is yet to come. Container shipping is a complex business, he said.

“It’s very international. A third ship is possible and Maher Terminals’ work staff is ready. Despite the worldwide economic crisis I still see growth.”

Kristoff feels the port is the key to unlocking the door to the potential Prince Rupert was intended for over 100 years ago, but, he added, it takes time to develop a port.

“If you’ve got a port in Vancouver that you ship through and you’re making a decision to now ship out of Prince Rupert, that’s a big decision. There’s big congestion in Vancouver and that isn’t going away,” he said.

Kristina DeAraujo, manager of a local container handling company, Quickload Terminals, has seen the trans-load business of the port “sprouting”. “I think it surprised stakeholders.”

Kristoff agreed. “Considering the port was not intended to service an abundance of truck traffic, the volumes have exceed all expectations,” he commented.

According to DeAraujo, discussions have been taking place that trans-loading is a growing service requirement - and that’s a good thing.

“Trucks are needed too, even for containers to go out by ship, because examination and de-stuffing take place outside of the terminals,” DeAraujo explained.

Quickload was first established as an examination facility with Canadian Border Services Agency. That relationship is still intact today.

“From that, we knew what our volumes would be,” DeAraujo said. “We are able to do any services that a bustling port would offer.”

In addition to Kristoff Trucking and Quickload Terminals, other local companies handling and hauling containers are Bandstra Transportation Systems Ltd, Canada Freightways and Willams Transportation and Logistics (formerly Linsdays).