General Infrastructure Discussion

[scottN]

Right now we tax developers who are actually doing something productive - building more housing. Instead we should be taxing land speculation - holding underutilized land for profit without doing anything that benefits anyone.

[whatnext]

Originally Posted by Changing City

Because natural gas is still a fossil fuel, and still emits CO2 when it's used, just like oil. While hydro, solar and wind (and tidal, and geothermal and nuclear) don't. So those should be where we invest, not building gas plants. And we should be adding battery banks to store the wind and solar power that is created when there's less demand. And adding more utilities like the SEFC energy utility that taps sewer heat. Creative Energy is ditching their gas boilers for electric - that single transition will replace a huge amount of CO2 generated every year (38,000 tonnes). So burning gas isn't 'clean'. We can control what we do - not what China does.

Let's see if Eby goes through with rumoured bans on new natural gas heating now....

Canada’s Indigenous groups to borrow $1 billion for pipeline stake
By Chunzi Xu and Robert Tuttle
August 01, 2024

(Bloomberg) -- A consortium of Indigenous communities in western Canada is preparing a $1 billion (US$720 million) bond offering to fund the purchase of a stake in TC Energy Corp.’s natural gas pipeline system in Western Canada, according to people familiar with the matter.

The bond deal may come to the market in the next several weeks, according to the people, who asked not to be identified discussing a private matter. The transaction of the pipeline stake is expected to close in the third quarter, subject to financing and official approval of the participating communities, TC Energy said.

The Alberta Indigenous Opportunities Corporation is providing a $1 billion equity-loan guarantee to support the transaction, a spokesperson said.

A representative for the Indigenous consortium, which comprises 72 communities in Alberta, British Columbia and Saskatchewan, didn’t respond to requests for comment....

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/investing/20...to-borrow-c1-billion-for-pipeline-stake/

[Changing City]

[QUOTE=whatnext;10257711]Let's see if Eby goes through with rumoured bans on new natural gas heating now....

The article references a pipeline used for gas exports, so domestic heating wouldn't be related to any investment stake.

[jollyburger]

[QUOTE=Changing City;10257746]

Originally Posted by whatnext

Let's see if Eby goes through with rumoured bans on new natural gas heating now....

The article references a pipeline used for gas exports, so domestic heating wouldn't be related to any investment stake.

The Bloomberg article is probably wrong the NGTL is domestic & export.

TC Energy's website says:

The NGTL System is TC Energy’s natural gas gathering and transportation system for the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin (WCSB), connecting most of the natural gas production in western Canada to domestic and export markets.

The March 2024 NGTL System map shows 45% of the gas going to Alberta & BC with the rest to the US.

https://www.tcenergy.com/siteassets/pdfs...transcanada-ngtl-pipeline-system-map.pdf

[jollyburger]

Metro Vancouver has been investigating suitable locations for a barge berth that will be used as a staging area for the upgrade of the Iona Island Wastewater Treatment Plant.

The plant is located in the Fraser River estuary between Vancouver and Richmond.

Part of the process has involved Metro soliciting feedback from the residents who would be affected by the construction and use of the barge berth.

On Sept. 24, approximately 15 people attended an open house in Richmond to learn about a proposed site at an existing barge facility located on the eastern point of Sea Island.

The session was open to the public and primarily intended for neighbouring Sea Island residents to learn more.

The format was informal, with informational display boards and staff, including Winnie Shi, director of project delivery for Iona Wastewater Treatment Projects, on hand to answer questions.

The Sea Island site is the fourth barge berth location that Metro has proposed.

Metro had already put forward three other locations: northwest of Iona Island; adjacent to the construction laydown area; and McDonald Slough.

They were all roundly criticized by the people who live nearby.

While sites one to three are located on Iona Island itself, the fourth is approximately seven kilometres away, on Sea Island.

It is connected to Sea Island Way and eventually meets up with Ferguson Road.

The barge berth, wherever it is located, is expected to be in peak operation between 2026 and 2030.

When design and construction take place will depend on which site is selected.

An average of one barge per day will be pulled by tug to the berth.


METRO VANCOUVER
Metro says the Iona Island Wastewater Treatment Plant is being upgraded “to ensure continued protection of public health and the environment in a growing region.”

The consulting engineering services contract for the upgrade has been awarded to Fraser Delta Group, a fully integrated joint venture between AECOM Canada Ltd. and Jacobs Consultancy Canada Inc.

The consortium has retained four sub-consultants: WSP Canada will provide geotechnical and environmental services; Local Practice, with sub-consultants Space2Place and Miller Hull, will provide building and landscape architectural services; Kerr Wood Leidal will provide resource recovery design services; and SenezCo will provide building code specialty services.

The cost of the upgrades to the aging wastewater treatment plant is budgeted at $9.9 billion, because it is one of the last in the region to require a minimum of secondary treatment to meet federal Wastewater Systems Effluent Regulations.

Built in 1963, the plant serves approximately 750,000 residents of the Vancouver Sewerage Area, which includes Vancouver, parts of the suburbs of Burnaby and Richmond, the University of British Columbia (UBC) and the University Endowment Lands, which are adjacent to UBC. That number is expected to grow to 950,000 by 2051.

The facility processes about 200 billion litres of wastewater every year, which is 40 per cent of the region’s total amount.

The upgraded plant is being designed to provide tertiary wastewater treatment to improve the treated wastewater quality that is discharged into the Pacific Ocean.

To go with the plant upgrade, complementary ecological projects will restore the ecosystem of Iona Beach Regional Park, build climate resilience and enable park visitors to enjoy nature.

The upgrade project is just getting started and is in the preliminary design stage, with early work to prepare the site underway.

To support the barge berth (whichever one is chosen), Ferguson Road in Richmond is being upgraded.

In partnership with the Vancouver Airport Authority, Ferguson Road will be re-aligned and a new water supply to the treatment plant will be built.

“The Ferguson Road upgrade will improve access for construction traffic and improves safety for cyclists and visitors to Iona Beach Regional Park,” says Shi.

Work on the upgrade will be completed in October.

In addition, improvements to the Causeway Road are in the detailed design stage now, says Shi.

Upgrades will include widening the causeway to accommodate construction traffic, creating safer cycling shoulders northbound and southbound, creating queuing lanes for construction vehicles and upgrading utilities required for the new treatment plant.

“We hope to be in construction in early 2025,” says Shi.

The second barge berth open house will take place Oct. 8 from 6 to 8 p.m. at Dunbar Community Centre, 4747 Dunbar St., Vancouver.

https://canada.constructconnect.com/joc/...w-location-for-controversial-barge-berth

[jollyburger]

Rock slide near North Vancouver's Cleveland Dam threatens Capilano River

Metro Vancouver staff are keeping a close eye on the Capilano Canyon after a rock slide sent debris into the river below the Cleveland Dam.

The regional authority began receiving reports about the slide on Thursday afternoon, said Brant Arnold-Smith, division manager of protective services and emergency management.

“It’s an area that is well known to Metro Vancouver teams. We actively monitor it on an ongoing basis, because it historically has been an area where the canyon walls do shed rock from time to time,” he said. “Yesterday’s rockfall, although small, was larger in nature [than slides typically seen in the area].”

There are a number of natural factors that cause rock slides of that type to happen, Arnold-Smith said, including rain, freezing and thawing, erosion and root growth within the rock.

Arnold-Smith said the slide presented no danger to the dam itself and there is likely little risk to the public walking on any of Capilano River Regional Park’s trails.

https://www.nsnews.com/local-news/rock-s...and-dam-threatens-capilano-river-9616755

[officedweller]

MetroVancouver twitter:


50 tonnes of fatbergs— chunks of hardened grease — were removed from the Richmond sewer system.
Fats, oils and grease can clog your pipes (and our sewers). Put them in your green bin, not down the sink.
Find out more: http://wipeitgreenbinit.ca

[whatnext]

I saw this real-time sewer overflow map posted on social media today. Scary to think there were that many sewer overflows in the last 48 hours without particularly unusual rainfall:

https://metrovancouver.org/services/liquid-waste/real-time-sewer-overflow-map

[officedweller]

Cool, thanks!

[jollyburger]

Metro Vancouver is preparing to dig a 1.4-kilometre tunnel deep under Stanley Park in a bid to maintain a supply of drinking water to the region.

Construction of the new tunnel is set to begin in mid-November 2024 and won’t wrap up until 2029.

The $495-million project will replace old infrastructure from the 1930s and connect it to an existing underwater pipe that funnels water from the Capilano mountain reservoir on the North Shore to homes and businesses south of the Burrard Inlet, said Murray Gant, Metro Vancouver’s director of major projects for tunnelling.

“The Capilano Main Number 4 provides about a third of the drinking water to the region,” said Gant. “It’s the main source of drinking water to the City of Vancouver and Richmond.”

The pipe is part of a water supply system that provides the region’s 2.8 million residents about a billion litres of drinking water a day in the winter, and 1.5 billion litres of water in the summer.

Once completed, the Stanley Park water supply tunnel has a design life of a century. Barring any natural disaster, Gant says Metro engineers expect it could last more than 200 years.

https://www.nsnews.com/highlights/metro-...g-tunnel-deep-under-stanley-park-9761677

[officedweller]

Annacis Water Supply Tunnel

Metro Vancouver digs water tunnel designed to withstand ‘the big one’ under Fraser River
https://globalnews.ca/news/10865862/annacis-water-tunnel-earthquake/

[whatnext]

Originally Posted by chowhou

https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/north-sh...plant-metro-vancouver-independent-review

I was surprised to look and find there is no real thread for dealing with MetroVancouver, the organization.

I'll add this here in light of the discussion of general "financial incompetence" of the organization:

Under budget pressure, Metro Vancouver puts a halt on staff travel
Travel crackdown comes at a time of budget pressures and a week after revelations about an Invest Vancouver trip to attend a conference in Lisbon
Author of the article: Derrick Penner
Published Nov 29, 2024

Metro Vancouver has called a halt to all out-of-province travel by regional district staff for professional development while it’s under pressure to tighten its budget and amid revelations of apparently lavish trips by some staff.

Jerry Dobrovolny, regional district chief administrative officer, delivered the edict to hit pause on professional development travel Wednesday in an email to all staff as a measure to “ensure the effective use of all funds, and any potential savings.”

The email also comes a week after revelations of an early November trip to an internet conference in Lisbon by a staff member from Metro’s Invest Vancouver economic development agency were reported by Global News.

The staff member was part of Vancouver’s delegation to the Web Summit, also known as Collision, which will be held in Vancouver in 2025 and Metro said the travel was within the organization’s mandate. Half the cost was covered by federal funding. But it is the latest in travel by Metro members that critics have characterized as excessive.

Metro spokeswoman Amanda McCuaig said the regional district “pulled back significantly” on staff travel starting in July when Metro board chairman Mike Hurley, mayor of Burnaby, called for a halt to international travel by elected officials.

That was after Hurley and three other Metro mayors travelled to an international wastewater conference in Amsterdam, despite revelations that Metro’s new North Shore sewage treatment plant had become an almost $4 billion boondoggle......

https://theprovince.com/news/metro-vanco...wcm/f84c90fc-d5e0-4ddb-8605-15129be65a00

[jollyburger]

Anyone hear anything on the Main Street sewage pipe repair? Are they in the progress of finishing?

[WarrenC12]

Originally Posted by jollyburger

Anyone hear anything on the Main Street sewage pipe repair? Are they in the progress of finishing?

As a local resident we got an update a few weeks ago saying things were still several weeks out. It was very vague. I thought they would be opening at least one lane but who knows. It's brutal for local traffic.

[aberdeen5698]

Originally Posted by WarrenC12

As a local resident we got an update a few weeks ago saying things were still several weeks out. It was very vague. I thought they would be opening at least one lane but who knows. It's brutal for local traffic.

The City of Vancouver Roadworks page has the expected closure listed as Jun 21, 2024 to Feb 28, 2025.

[casper]

Originally Posted by whatnext

I was surprised to look and find there is no real thread for dealing with MetroVancouver, the organization.

I'll add this here in light of the discussion of general "financial incompetence" of the organization:

[I]Under budget pressure, Metro Vancouver puts a halt on staff travel
Travel crackdown comes at a time of budget pressures and a week after revelations about an Invest Vancouver trip to attend a conference in Lisbon
Author of the article: Derrick Penner
Published Nov 29, 2024

Metro Vancouver has called a halt to all out-of-province travel by regional district staff for professional development while it’s under pressure to tighten its budget and amid revelations of apparently lavish trips by some staff.

....
The email also comes a week after revelations of an early November trip to an internet conference in Lisbon by a staff member from Metro’s Invest Vancouver economic development agency were reported by Global News.

The staff member was part of Vancouver’s delegation to the Web Summit, also known as Collision, which will be held in Vancouver in 2025 and Metro said the travel was within the organization’s mandate. Half the cost was covered by federal funding. But it is the latest in travel by Metro members that critics have characterized as excessive.
....
https://theprovince.com/news/metro-vanco...wcm/f84c90fc-d5e0-4ddb-8605-15129be65a00

Lets be realistic on this. Moving Web Summit from Toronto to Vancouver was a major economic win for Vancouver. This event is going to draw 40,000+ attendees to the city for a week. With significant economic spin off.

Having a small number of delegates from Vancouver attend the other WebSumites is the world is likely a requirement.

[WarrenC12]

Originally Posted by aberdeen5698

The City of Vancouver Roadworks page has the expected closure listed as Jun 21, 2024 to Feb 28, 2025.

Thanks. We have received several updates over the months mostly comprised of "we don't know what is going on".

[aberdeen5698]

Originally Posted by WarrenC12

Thanks. We have received several updates over the months mostly comprised of "we don't know what is going on".

The Roadworks page is an indispensable resource for Vancouverites. Every resident ought to have it bookmarked, IMHO.

[jollyburger]

That roadwork closure permit was updated on November 25th.

[jollyburger]

Creative Energy is thinking of switching to a low-temperature hot water system from steam.

https://www.bcuc.com/OurWork/ViewProceeding?applicationid=1304