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Kitimat, British Columbia
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Kitimat (population 8987, 2006 census) is a coastal city in northwestern British Columbia, in the Regional District of Kitimat-Stikine. The Kitimat Valley, which includes the adjacent community of Terrace, is the most populous urban district in Northwest British Columbia. The city is a company town planned and built by the Aluminum Company of Canada (Alcan) during the 1950s.
Kitimat's municipal area is 242.63 km² (93.69 sq mi) by design.
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Encyclopedia
Kitimat (population 8987, 2006 census) is a coastal city in northwestern British Columbia, in the Regional District of Kitimat-Stikine. The Kitimat Valley, which includes the adjacent community of Terrace, is the most populous urban district in Northwest British Columbia. The city is a company town planned and built by the Aluminum Company of Canada (Alcan) during the 1950s.
Kitimat's municipal area is 242.63 km² (93.69 sq mi) by design. It is located on tidewater in one of only two wide-flat valleys on the coast of British Columbia — Vancouver's Fraser Valley being the other. The Kitimat Valley is one of the few locations on Canada's Pacific coast that has substantial room for affordable growth, although between 2001 and 2006 the population of Kitimat dropped by 12.6%, the largest percentage decline of any Canadian census division.
Early history
The Kitimat Arm has been home to the Haisla First Nation for centuries. "Kitimaat" in the Tsimshian language refers to the Haisla First Nation "People of the Snow" who are the original inhabitants of the Kitimat Valley. The name also refers to the large annual snowfall stemming from the coastal temperate climate.
Alcan company town
Kitimat was designed and developed in the 1950s after the Provincial Government of British Columbia invited Alcan to develop hydroelectric facilities to support one of the most power-intensive industry of all: the aluminum smelting industry. The company built a dam, 16 km (10 mi) tunnel, powerhouse, 82 km (51 mi) transmission line, a deep sea terminal and smelter. The company was also responsible for designing and constructing the city of Kitimat from scratch.
Alcan employed the services of the city planner Clarence Stein in order to ensure the community design could handle substantial future growth. Kitimat benefits today from this the quality of planning resulting from his Garden City design concept. Stein's design kept industry well separated from the community with large areas for expansion. He also for looped streets surrounding an urban City Centre Mall but linked by over 45 kilometres of walkways enabling connection to and from all areas of the community. Stein's design also ensured substantial greenspace areas and future expansion concepts which have been upheld by the city planners. The fact that Kitimat's natural environment is a predominant feature cherished by citizens today is publicly acknowledged through community branding: Kitimat has been and will remain "A Marvel of Nature and Industry".
Economy
Aluminum producer Rio Tinto Alcan and Eurocan Pulp and Paper are the main employers in the municipality. Other core activities include the import of petrochemical products (Methanol and Condensate), metal fabrication and industrial engineering. Over $16 Billion in pending investment is proposed for Kitimat over the next decade including large and small scale green energy projects. This includes the Haisla Crab River/Europa Run-of-the-River Project, the Banks Island Wind Power Project, and the Kitimat LNG Gas Combined Cycle Plant to be developed in partnership with the Haisla on Haisla Industrial Development Lands at Bish Cove. Additional planned developments include the Kitimat Port Development project featuring break-bulk port facilities, and Alcan's US$1.8 billion expansion and upgrade of its Kitimat aluminum plant to 400,000 tons/yr.
Pending energy projects that have identified Kitimat as a strategic gateway include Pacific Northern Gas's Pacfic Trail Pipeline, Enbridge's Gateway Pipeline, and Kinder Morgan's Northern Leg Pipeline. The latter two pipelines may prove to be in competition with one another. Additionally, Pembina Pipelines are assessing a line that would carry important products to Alberta needed for the massive oilsand expansion project.
Kemano hydroelectric project
In the 1920s, the Provincial Government of British Columbia extensively evaluated the province's hydroelectric generating potential. In the late 1940s, the Canadian Government sought to tap the untapped resources of northwest British Columbia. All this led to the identification of the Eutsuk/Ootsa/Nechako drainage basin as a potential site for a sizable reservoir. The potential of this vast system of rivers and lakes prompted British Columbia to invite Alcan to conduct a detailed investigation of the area. Alcan was searching for a site for a large aluminum smelter, an activity requiring vast amounts of electricity. Alcan concluded that the site was more than adequate to generate the required electricity, and decided to build a smelter there. The timing was right because the post-World War II boom saw a rising demand for aluminum.
In the 1950s, after signing the agreement with the British Columbia government for land and water rights, Alcan undertook the Kitimat/Kemano Project, arguably one of the most ambitious Canadian engineering projects of the 20th century. The project required not only building the Kenney Dam to reverse the Nechako River, but also boring a 16 km (10 mi) tunnel under Mt. Dubose of the Coast Range to the generating station, also built under Mt. Dubose. The electricity from Kemano is transported 80 km (50 mi) across mountains via a custom built twin circuit transmission line.
Further up the Kitimat River, the townsite of Kitimat was carved out of the old growth forest. The company invested over CA$500 million (equivalent to CA$3.3 billion) and employeed over 35,000 workers over the five years required to build the Kenney Dam, a hydroelectric generating station under Mt. Dubose, the small community of Kemano, a 250,000 tpy aluminum smelter, a deepwater port open year round, a complete townsite designed for a population of 50,000, and a paved highway to the outside world. As a result of this large project, other companies saw the potential of the area, resulting in further industrial development in the Kitimat valley.
Controversies
The Alcan project has not been free of controversy. Politicians, aboriginal groups, and farmers and residents of the Nechako lakes district have long opposed the contractual release of provincial resources with the profits going to a private firm. Many individuals and groups protested the flooding caused by the creation of the new reservoir, with the destruction of homesteads, villages, burial grounds, and millions of board feet of prime timber, and the disruption of prime fish habitat on the Nechako and Fraser rivers. The City of Kitimat is currently in legal proceedings with the major employer of the community.
In the late 1980s, the company began work on the Kemano Completion Project which would have doubled the generating capacity of the Kemano plant. After Alcan had already bored a second tunnel through the mountain and extended the generating station within the mountain, the Provincial Government of the day called a halt to the project for a variety of reasons. Having invested over 500 million dollars in the project, Alcan took the provincial government to court. This controversy was settled when Alcan and the provincial government signed the 1997 KCP agreement.
Alcan plans to increase the output of its Kitimat smeltery from 250,000 MT/Yr to 400,000 MT/Yr.
Media
Newspaper
- Kitimat Northern Sentinel
- Kitimat Daily Online
Radio
Television
External links
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