"Consultation with First Nations has begun and Jacques Whitford Environmental Consultants have been hired to conduct the environment assessment."

??????

I am very curious about what this means. Consultation about what? Environmental assessment of what? The port construction is well underway with the pilings in place and the cranes ordered.

What on earth are they consulting about at this late stage and what environmental assessment is being conducted at this late stage?

Just checked things out. Those references appear to be in relation to the LNG terminal proposal on Ridley Island.

http://www.predc.com/docs/Westpac%20LNG%20begins%20process%20for%20terminal%20in%20Prince%20Rupert,%20June%206,%202006.pdf

http://www.rupertport.com/pdf/media/s%20fairview%20terminal%20conversion%20takes%20environmental%20responsibility%20seriously%20sept%20%2006.pdf

I think dawn fell over marblehead finally ... :-)

I read phase I and phase II as meaning something other than the future expansion of the part of the port under construction at the present time. I read it to be the next stage of this construction project, as in now that the pilings are in, the next stage of the construction will get started.

Mea culpa.

Then again ...... if they are not sure that they will get environmental and First Nations blessing for the next expansion phase, would they have gone ahead with building this first phase in the first place?

Why on earth would they not have done it as one lump sum project which would cover the ultimate size?

Now I am starting to wonder what exactly is covered in these talks and assessments. Is the whole rail corridor to at least Terrace, if not beyond included as well? Double tracking may be required to name just one impact consideration for a narrow valley. Is everything going to be shipped by rail, or will trucking also handle some cargo? If so, what will be the impact of any road widening which may occur?

I think PGers are counting too much on the inland port going in there and that they are in for a major shock before long.
So far just a bunch of political posturing...typical stuff when talk is cheap and the so is the government...they are trying to make friendly befor the bomb drops..
my himble opinion..
others are entitles to their opinion also...and guess what they may even differ....

IMO if a port was seriously planned for PG we would have heard some more about it by CN by this late stage. I think selling BC Rail sold all our cards for negotiation. We should have went the route of open rail lines for all rail operators with the rail line maintaned by the BCR crown entity. This way a real inland port could have taken shape with a number of shippers having access to the infrastructure.

1. There will be no double tracking of the CN line from Prince Rupert to anywhere. The first phase of this Container Port calls for 500,000 TEU"s (20ft Containers) This means 250,000 40ft Containers. Once you double stack the 40ft Containers you come up with 125,000 rail cars. Assume 150 Rail cars per train (Max) divide by 365 days per year, and you come up with 2-150 car trains in each direction per day. For those who are interested this is less trains per day than the CN ran when they were hauling coal from Tumbler Ridge, to Prince Rupert. Phase 2 in 2010 supposedly will increase Containers to 1,000,000 40ft Containers which when you do math gives you 9 Trains per day in each direction. At that point you would have to have a number of 150 car sidings or some double tracking. However this would not be required in the 1st phase.

As for trucking, as far as I can determine the Prince Rupert Container Port will only have one gate for trucking, mainly because 90% or more of these containers will be loaded on rail and shipped to the US Midwest. Return Containers loaded or empty will be on rail cars, and therefore there will be little if any trucking required.

The Container Terminal in Prince George (If and when if is built) will be to gather loads in Containers from the surrounding area and load on Rail cars to Prince Rupert for loading on the Ships. The only trucking will be from areas like Mackenzie, Quesnel, etc; to Prince George and local trucking to and from the Pulp/Planer Mills to pick up loads and load on rail. There will be no trucking of loads from Prince George area to Prince Rupert BC (To expensive) and no backhauls.

The only way you could support 1,000,000 40ft Containers per year in and out of Prince Rupert would be to get loads from other areas East of Prince George up to and including the US Midwest to go back to Pr Rupert, because there is not sufficient business or loads in the Prince George area to fill 1,000,000 40ft Containers, unless you killed off all your Vancouver Rail traffic and discontinued selling lumber and pulp to the USA, which I might add usually pays the same or more for pulp/paper/and lumber than the Chinese do.

At this point I would say that the second phase probably will not happen. If it does it is more likely that it would be in the area of 500,000 20ft Containers or 250,000 40ft containers.

Loaded Containes from Prince George and area will quickly max out because of limited production and sales problems, and after that the loads will come from somewhere else, or the Containers will got back empty, and things will quiet down here, with a net gain of very few jobs.

In any event more should be revealed in the not to distant future.