Engineering firms have role in Campbell River highway, CHUM hospital, lithium mine, Alberta power transmission, carbon capture

R.F. Binnie & Associates of Parksville, B.C., Highland Engineering and Surveying, and McElhanney Consulting Services, both from Campbell River, B.C. provided design engineering and contract administration services for the recently completed South Island Highway Improvement project. The project involved the upgrading of major water and sewer infrastructure as well as improvements to Highway 19A. The works between Hilchey Road and Rockland Road in Campbell River included the creation of two divided lanes, roadside transit facilities, a reconfigured Seawalk and park, and a new sanitary lift station at Simms Creek.

H.H. Angus & Associates, Pasquin St-Jean, Roche and Groupe SM are engineers on the Centre Hospitalier de l’Universite de Montreal (CHUM) project. At $2.1 billion, it is one of the largest current healthcare projects in the world. The design, build, finance and operate contract was finalized in June with a consortium known as the CHUM Collectif, which includes Laing O’Rourke, Obrascon, Huarte Lain SA, Innisfree, and Dalkia Canada. The new facilities will consolidate the francophone hospital’s operations downtown. Construction includes a new 21-storey building, with 225,000 square metres of floor space, 772 single bed rooms, and a new energy centre. The proejct is due for completion in 2016. Architects are Cannon Design and DCYSA.

GENIVAR is in charge of engineering, procurement, construction and management (EPCM) for the development of a $190-million new lithium mine and processing plant in La Corne Township, 60 kilometres north of Val d’Or, Quebec. The Quebec Lithium Corporation anticipates the plant will output 20,000 tonnes per year of battery-grade lithium carbonate for 15 years, beginning in 2012. GENIVAR also did the environmental studies. BBA and AMC Mining Consultants prepared mineral reserve estimates.

Bechtel was selected by ATCO Electric to provide project and construction management services for the Hanna Regional Transmission project in Alberta. The project is to expand ATCO’s transmission system in southeast Alberta and involves 400 kilometres of new and existing transmission lines, new substations and upgrades to existing substations.

Caber Engineering of Calgary is helping with the engineering design of the Alberta Carbon Trunk Line (ACTL). The ACTL isAlberta’s first substantial, commercial carbon capture and storage project. Caber is working on the CO2 recovery plant, located south of the Agrium Redwater fertilizer plant in Fort Saskatchewan. The project includes cooling, compressing, dhydrating and refrigerating CO2 and pumping it as liquid into the ACTL.