TC Energy, formally known as TransCanada Pipelines, presented Foothills County council with an update on the Turner Valley Compressor Station Unit Addition (Turner Valley CS) construction, while providing insight into their community engagement plans.
Kaili Kasper, public affairs representative for the West Path Delivery Project (WPDP), said it was brought forward in 2017 in order to increase delivery of natural gas to customers. TC Energy received approval in April 2019 from the National Energy Board (NEB) to construct, own and operate the project.
"(TC Energy) has been operating for over 65 years, and part of that includes our commitment to the communities," said Kasper. "That commitment includes community investment opportunities, contracting opportunities, and property taxes...
"Our most recent estimates indicate the current property tax on the existing facility results in $170,000 to the (County). With the service of the unit addition, our estimates indicate that it will increase to $510,000, which is obviously great news for local municipal services and that type of thing."
TC Energy encourages their employees from all levels to support community investment and local organizations, said Kasper, who reached out to council for any local opportunities they knew of, focusing on community investment opportunities that highlight education, safety, community and the environment.
Coun. Suzanne Oel suggested the High Country Rural Crime Watch Association, which serves the entire Turner Valley RCMP Detachment response area. Oel said they are a frugal organization and a little bit of sponsor money would allow them to continue their free membership, and in return would put TC Energy on communications sent out to the over 800 members.
Reeve Larry Spilak also suggested the Crescent Point Field House in Aldersyde used by the entire region, as the naming rights are coming up at the end of the year and said TC Energy could be a prime target for that.
Kasper said both sounded like excellent initiatives and she would be in touch to discuss them further.
Construction at the Turner Valley site began on April 29 of this year, a week after receiving NEB approval, and the contractor for the site, MasTec Canada, has hired many local trades people for the project, and will be looking additional pipefitters in August, said Chris Phung, project manager for the Turner Valley CS.
Phung said the most painful part of the construction process is over for the residents of Turner Valley: the pile driving.
"We had about 500-something piles all driven into the ground, and we provided adequate notice and let (the neighbours) know how things went," he said. "They went very well and on schedule, so I think the greatest impact, in terms of noise, we've already gone past."
Phung said further construction is out of the ground now, with concrete and structural work starting. The other aspect of construction that might impact the community around the site will be a station outage planned for the September timeframe, which he said would come from tying the mechanical pipe into the system.
From there, they will be doing final commissioning and mechanical welding, which will see a peak of 100 workers from the baseline of around 60 people on site. The anticipated service date is set for June 2020.
The WPDP consists of three components: the Western Alberta System Mainline--the pipeline section--that falls into Rocky View County; the Burton Creek Compressor Station unit addition; and the Turner Valley CS.
The pipeline system in Rocky View County is of 21.5 kilometres of 42" natural gas pipeline that will run from north of Cochrane out of an existing NOVA Gas Transmission Ltd (NGTL) facility and will finish 16 kilometres west of Calgary.
Both the Turner Valley and Burton Creek compressor stations are 30 mega-watt stations and will help to push the gas through the pipeline.
The facility in Turner Valley has been in operation for over 40 years and the WPDP will be adding an additional unit to the existing two already on site. According to Phung, the project will increase the natural gas throughput by about 30 per cent when complete.
Phung said he did not expect construction to impact the greater Foothills County, but Turner Valley will see an increase in truck and construction traffic. He said they have taken measures to limit the traffic through the town by primarily using an the north access to the site rather than the south, to limit the amount of traffic through the town.
Coun. Jason Parker said he received calls from residents reporting concerns about construction vehicles using the south road through the town to access the site, which he said was not designed for construction traffic.
Phung said at the beginning of construction there were some contractors that were not using the north access as directed, though he assured council those people were written up and, in some cases, moved to different tasks within the project.
While the road-use agreement for the project does not exclude the road to the south, Phung said they were doing their best to push as much traffic to the north as possible, and he felt that might have been misinterpreted to mean that no traffic would be coming from the south.
He said while they prefer to have the trucks and construction traffic coming off of Highway 22 because it makes more sense, but in certain instances—such as big moves—it is impossible to make some of the turns on that route. He said they had reached out to the residents to explain the road-use in further detail.
He added that in the road-use agreement, TC Energy is responsible for any damage to the roads caused by their use, and said if landowners are concerned about the integrity of the access route roads to contact TC Energy, saying they are "contractually and morally obligated" to fix the roads should they ruin them.
"We're very sensitive to the landowners to the south, we realize it's not the ideal route, but again there may be some traffic coming through," he said. "With some of the folks we have talked to they were talking about the quantity of maybe six or ten vehicles in a week, meanwhile we have 200 to 300 coming in through the north."
Residents to the north of the site had been consulted as well, in an effort to prepare them for the increase in construction traffic. Phung said they have gone to extent of sending letters and dropping off TC Energy swag bags to thank them for their patience.
"We're very sensitive to the increase of traffic because this is acreage country, and you don't move to an acreage to listen to construction traffic," he said.
