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County expecting influx of workers

The County of St. Paul will be welcoming hundreds of new workers this summer to work on a pipeline just east of town, which will run from the La Corey area to Hardisty. Many of the workers are expected to be staying at a work camp northeast of St.
The old auction mart located west of St. Paul has been converted into a temporary administration building by Robert B Somerville Pipelines Ltd.
The old auction mart located west of St. Paul has been converted into a temporary administration building by Robert B Somerville Pipelines Ltd.

The County of St. Paul will be welcoming hundreds of new workers this summer to work on a pipeline just east of town, which will run from the La Corey area to Hardisty.

Many of the workers are expected to be staying at a work camp northeast of St. Paul, according to County of St. Paul Reeve Steve Upham.

“We’ve been putting together a proposal for a 300-man camp to be situated about six or seven miles northeast of St. Paul,” said the reeve, last week. “The camp is run by an independent company that has applied to have a camp situated within the county . . . They will be signing road-use agreements and things like that to protect the County’s interest.”

Upham said there is another smaller work camp located in the Ashmont area that will host roughly 50 RV stalls near Batty Lake.

“It will have a smaller impact,” said Upham. “It’s just a small group of campers that will be parking on a private piece of land.”

Upham said that while the impact of the endeavor is still to be seen, he expects it will be very fruitful for both the Town and the County of St. Paul.

“It’s a wonderful opportunity for the Town of St. Paul. The workers will be here and they’ll be consuming products, and the majority of those supplies will inevitably come from the Town of St. Paul, so it’s a win-win for the town and the county,” he said.

“To use a cliché, we’re dipping our toe in the water because we’ve never done it before. Inevitably when you have 300 extra workers come into an area there could be problems. It has impacts, so we’re making sure that any agreement that we have with them is fairly ironclad in protecting us and the area’s citizens.”

While “nothing is set in stone yet” in terms of a start date for the project, Upham said he expects the work camps to be around for a couple of years

“There’s an assessment piece that will have benefit for the county and it brings economic development in,” he said. “I think any time you have exploration and energy development or infrastructure development it’s bound to have a financial impact on the county.”

Upham added that he hopes the endeavor will lead to expansion within the County of St. Paul, as the workers will be able to see firsthand what this county has to offer long-term.

“I think people are coming in, they’re being exposed to the county and seeing what a great place it is to live and raise a family. Hopefully, when the job is over they would look at coming here permanently possibly, who knows,” he said.

“I think immediately it has great positive financial impact. Any time we develop our resources and extract value from that I think it’s positive. We just have to make sure our interests our protected from a societal and environmental standpoint.”

One area that has already seen changes due to the upcoming development is the old auction mart located west of St. Paul. It has recently been taken over by Robert B Somerville Pipelines Ltd. and Facilities Coordinator Garnet Corbin says the building and yard is being used as a temporary administration building while construction of the pipeline from La Corey to Hardisty takes place.

The company is doing other work in the Lakeland area and St. Paul is a central location to the work, he explains. The company is also setting up in Wainwright, which is another central location.

Corbin says he anticipates the pipeline will be complete by the end of 2013.

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