Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Back to the future for the Prince Rupert waterfront?

A letter to the editor contributor to the Daily News offers up an interesting suggestion of returning to the days of break bulk shipping to complement the Fairview Container Port.

Fairview of course was once a break bulk shipping terminal that saw some lean years prior to the decision to convert it to a container terminal, but according to Jorge Pizarro that doesn’t mean that the bulk cargo lines can’t still make port calls on Prince Rupert.

Pizarrro outlines his thoughts from the perspective of a 31 year veteran of long shoring on the North coast, and uses the approach that Alberta’s Oceanic Terminal has to be some place; it may as well be in Rupert, though the competition for such a project is growing along the north coast.

The prospect of a break bulk facility on the north coast has been bounced around already, with Kitimat making plans to try and convert some of their waterfront space into a break bulk terminal to attract some of that shipping to their city. Infrastructure improvements to the CN line from Kitimat to Terrace would be needed as well as an infusion of cash and resources to develop a port facility there for break bulk.

The plan would make sense from the local longshore point of view however, considering that slow progress of full time work destined for Fairview and the time frame in place before expansion of a phase two will even get underway. Having a break bulk container terminal would at least give those on the ILWU labour rolls another option for a pay day from the current state of call outs at Fairview.

Having your available labour pool located in one community, able to move back and forth from call out to call out, would seem to give the idea more of a foothold in Rupert but these things tend to take on a life of their own, and Kitimat has placed a stake on break bulk to catch the ear of the provincial government.

Pizarro has any number of locations for such a facility in the city, from the Atlin Terminal area to Port Edward, including the suggestion for us to seek out some home made background material via YouTube



A more real time version of the idea can also be found through You Tube to give us an idea of the concept.



But in the course of his letter he misses out on perhaps the most sensible location there, which might be the Pulp Mill site at Watson Island. It would have all of the necessary ingredients for a successful operation, a working dock, storage area and highway and rail access. However, since no one actually seems to know what the folks at Sun Wave have planned for the site, it’s a piece of valuable real estate in the city that is being under used and kept under wraps much to the disappointment of the tax collectors.

The letter is an interesting intercession to try and spur some debate on building the economy up again and well worth a read.

Break-bulk full of possibilities
Letter to the Editor
Prince Rupert Daily News
Monday, May 12, 2008
Page four
To the editor,

The Alberta Oceanic Terminal has to start somewhere.

Prince Rupert had a break cargo port like the one now wanted in Kitimat. It was sacrificed for the container terminal.

Is it true that containers are the future but break cargo is an important share of the business today.

A new floating terminal could replace the activities of the old Fairview break bulk facility.

This could be a pontoon the size of a ship for dock, and connecting the pontoon to the shore you would need a Gottwald. On shore, the yard would need two cranes and they would do the storage on the yard. Search for “floating terminal” in Youtube.

Is difficult for me to explain every thing in this letter but I will try.

This installation needs no pavement on the yard everything could be moved by crane.

The office, lunch room toilets etc. could be housed in containers conditioned for use and ready to be moved at any time, anywhere.

No infrastructure is needed, generators could power the cranes and just as for ships, now sewer lines would be needed.

The site could be anywhere from Okabe ship yard to Atlin Terminal or Port Ed Porpoise Harbour.

The financing will have to be private because every dollar available has to go for the container operation.

This port needs much more to become a container terminal, rubber tire gantries, rail mounted gantries and space.

It is environmentally friendly. The dock floats as the pontoon crane, no permanent structures.

The idea is workable. Steel is heavy and long doesn’t fit easily into containers and Alberta is consuming it at a tremendous rate.

At one time, we had ore, sulphur, containers (M/V H. R. Brown), fish, lumber pulp, steel, heavy lift project cargo, wood pellets, animal feed, specialty grains, salvage, wax. Why not get it back?
The Alberta Oceanic Terminal has to start somewhere and the place is this harbour.

The more cargo gets attracted to this port the better, that way we may see CP Rail interested in putting a station in Prince Rupert and with this they won’t be lobbying to stop this port in Ottawa.

The port of Vancouver also lobbied against this as they want Rupert out of the picture.

In Europe, trains are electric here they will be soon (see the oil price) and that will be the time for a CPR terminal here. China has put 42+ billions into modernizing China Rail.

We have to be creative and take advantage of the geographical position, we don’t need hundreds of millions of dollars.

Break cargo produces much more work than containers.

I have been a longshoreman for 31 years on the B. C. coast, a sailor among other things and see many ports. I know that this will work.

Interested? Contact me and I will explain you the whole idea. There is more to it.

Thank for the attention,
Jorge Pizarro

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