By Chris Jaster
Maple Creek is expected to be very busy next year if Phase 2 of the Keystone XL pipeline project is approved in the United States.
The proposed Keystone pipeline system, which has been approved in Canada, but is still awaiting regulatory approval from the American federal government, is a 2,600 kilometre-long pipe that will pump 1.1 million barrels of crude oil a day from Hardisty, Alta., to the Gulf coast once it’s completed. Only 526 kilometres of the proposed line will be in Canada, and part of it will be installed 30 kilometres from Maple Creek.
Terry Cunha, a spokesperson for TransCanada, believes the line’s close proximity to Maple Creek will have a positive economic impact on the community.
“The community will be greatly impacted from the project because we’ll be using it for staging areas,” he said in a phone interview. “Our crews will be coming in and out of Maple Creek quite a bit, so the community will see a definite economic benefit by having these contractors working on the pipeline in the area.”
Although it appears that crews will be living at camps instead of in hotels while constructing the underground pipeline near Maple Creek, Cunha believes they will come into town often to eat, as well as to shop for clothing and tools. Not only that, automotive shops may be busier as crews will need work done on their vehicles.
There may also be more of a direct impact on the community as TransCanada usually finds local contractors to do some of the work for installing the pipeline.
“When we were in Saskatchewan (for Phase 1), we hired Saskatchewan guys and the same thing as we moved down the line, bringing in crews from the local area,” Cunha said of the 5,000 contractors hired to construct the pipeline that went through Saskatchewan and Manitoba before dropping into the States and ending in Illinois. “To build the second phase of this project, we’re looking at bringing on 13,000 jobs for the two years of construction.”
“Some of them could be Maple Creek contractors pending the work force and qualified contractors, but we try to do the best that we can.”
The pipeline’s construction, however, is still over a year away. In addition to waiting for regulatory approval south of the border — TransCanada won’t start construction until it knows it can build the pipeline in its entirety — the company also has to get permission from landowners to install the pipe on their property.
“We could build it, but we want to make sure we have approval for everything before we go and start this small segment in Canada,” said Cunha.
Any landowners with concerns about the pipeline running through their property may contact Keystone’s lands agent Lee Moore at 403-692-0850.