Northern Ontario developments!

[TbayON]

Dalton McGuinty is coming to Thunder Bay tomorrow morning to tour the Bombardier plant (again, how many times has he done that now?) and make some kind of announcement at the end of his tour. Nobody is saying too much about what he will announce. If I had to guess, I would say he is either re-announcing something we already knew about to make himself look good or he will be announcing another commuter rail-car purchase for the GTA. My hope is he has something a little more exciting than that, which is possible.

The release of phase 2 of the events centre feasibility study has been pushed back to September, from June. The consulting team required more time to fully study and design the thing. I personally don't mind them taking longer, so much as it means the quality and accuracy of the report will be that much better.

[vid]

Regarding the demolition of Rae's Furs on Simpson Street, a part of the building has been left standing for some reason. The basement hole was filled in and fences removed, so there is now just a cinder block structure left over from the building sitting in a dirt lot. I have no idea what is going on.

[Dwils01]

Two six floor apartment buildings will be built on Second Line East where the new Pine Street Extension will go to.

Two new 68-unit apartment buildings will be constructed on Second Line East
City council gave a nod of approval Monday to a planning application filed by Antonio M. Ruscio.
The applicant has now rezoned property on Second Line East, just east of Old Garden River Road and near the
new Pine Street entrance, from rural area to medium-density residential.

Read More Here: http://www.city.sault-ste-marie.on.c...ndLineApts.pdf

[tbay87]

They've started placing cement blocks on some of the vacant properties on may street by the beer store as well as that lot by the cigar shop, one lot they had chains between the cement blocks. these lots have been vacant for a long time i wonder whats going on. no more free parking i guess.

[TbayON]

Originally Posted by tbay87

They've started placing cement blocks on some of the vacant properties on may street by the beer store as well as that lot by the cigar shop, one lot they had chains between the cement blocks. these lots have been vacant for a long time i wonder whats going on. no more free parking i guess.

It could be for parking I suppose. I'm not sure what is going on either, but I do know with the courthouse now taking up so much space, the south core is short parking spots. Maybe these will become paid parking lots? Seems a little far from the south core for that (especially for Thunder Bay, no one here wants to walk more than 50 feet from their parking spot it seems), but its possible.

[vid]

I know a lot of owners of vacant land in the downtown core are in the process of turning their properties into private parking.

[TbayON]

Since I am in Dryden for a while, I might as well update everyone on developments happening here:

The proposal put forth by First Nations to re-develop the old Pinewood Elementary School in town has been withdrawn. They cited public concerns and comments from town leaders as the reasons for discontinuing the process of turning the former school into a Transitional School for students from northern, remote communities. The involved First Nations did pledge to continue working with Dryden and the school board in developing "other opportunities" though.

The Dryden Development Corporation is examining the potential for putting a lumber drying and planing facility in the Norwill Industrial Park. The facility is meant to purchase locally sawn lumber to dry it and dress it for sale to value added manufacturers. A feasibility study was just completed, which concluded the existing volume of lumber produced could sustain such a facility.

The new turbine that was built at the Domtar Dryden pulp mill was put into commission recently. A ribbon cutting ceremony was held this past Tuesday. The turbine was funded by the federal government a couple years back, and is producing electricity in house, reducing overall operating costs for the mill. Domtar had bigger plans for electricity production, but were unsuccessful in an application to the province's feed in tariff program. Still, the mill hopes to expand production of energy in the future.

The new OPP station on Hwy 17 east of town is coming along. The facility is on budget and on time. The move in date for the OPP to take the keys to the new 15000 sq. ft. building is July 17th.

The new water and sewage treatment, which is being built just off Hwy 17 on the west side of town (on Margeurite St.), is behind schedule a bit. It is supposed to come online by October. The price of the new facility is almost $30 million.

I intend on getting pictures of the last two items to post, but I keep forgetting.

TBNews is also reporting Wagner Ontario Forest Management is no longer interested in constructing a pellet plant in Ignace. Wagner received a wood allocation under the Ontario "Wood Supply Competition" fiasco a while back when their plan to build the plant landed them an allocation of 133 500 cubic metres/year of merchantable and unmerchantable timber. It was reported Wagner sees no market for pellets produced in Ignace due to competition from other jurisdictions and transportation issues. I hope someone jumps all over this because a Dryden fuel supplier (Bryan Tardiff) and an Ignace contractor with haul trucks (Louie Ricci, Ricci Trucking) formed a company called Far North Biomass. Far North Biomass' objective was to build a pellet plant in Ignace and develop a European-style district heating system in Dryden. Lambion Energy of Germany and Gilles Biomass Heating of Austria even got on board with the plan and Tardiff would have become the North American distributor of biomass equipment for Gilles. But all that would have empowered a local, northern economy, and god forbid the provincial government ever do that or allow it to happen.

[tjernobyl]

Originally Posted by TbayON

Dalton McGuinty is coming to Thunder Bay tomorrow morning to tour the Bombardier plant (again, how many times has he done that now?) and make some kind of announcement at the end of his tour. Nobody is saying too much about what he will announce. If I had to guess, I would say he is either re-announcing something we already knew about to make himself look good or he will be announcing another commuter rail-car purchase for the GTA. My hope is he has something a little more exciting than that, which is possible.

200 million, 60 cars, 100 jobs. No surprises; I thought this one had already been announced.

Originally Posted by vid

Regarding the demolition of Rae's Furs on Simpson Street, a part of the building has been left standing for some reason. The basement hole was filled in and fences removed, so there is now just a cinder block structure left over from the building sitting in a dirt lot. I have no idea what is going on.

To my understanding, the rear portion of the original building was a fur storage facility. As such, I guess it could be usable as a shed without much modification.

Originally Posted by tbay87

They've started placing cement blocks on some of the vacant properties on may street by the beer store as well as that lot by the cigar shop, one lot they had chains between the cement blocks. these lots have been vacant for a long time i wonder whats going on. no more free parking i guess.

There were signs up regarding environmental testing a while back. I believe many of them were former automotive service facilities at one point; cheaper to let sit than rehabilitate.

Serious flooding going on today. The City is under a state of emergency, as are some surrounding areas. 11-17 is washed out in Conmee, as are many other roads. Northwood Mall is flooded. Many reports of sewage backflows in basements in the East End and inland past May Street. A portion of the sewage treatment plant is underwater; citizens are asked to minimize any non-essential flushing. Kakabeka Falls is spectacular.

http://www.lakeheadca.com/FloodStatus.htm
http://www.tbnewswatch.com/news/2116...ncies-declared
http://www.thunderbay.ca/City_Govern...&PageMode=View
http://www.thunderbay.ca/Police/Media_Releases.htm
http://netnewsledger.com/2012/05/28/...n-thunder-bay/
http://netnewsledger.com/2012/05/26/...ver-the-falls/

[TbayON]

Originally Posted by tjernobyl

200 million, 60 cars, 100 jobs. No surprises; I thought this one had already been announced.

I believe this is a new order, one that had not yet been announced. The cars being built for this order are of a new design, but are still bi-levels as per Metrolinx's operation. The new style car is still in the design stage, and if I understand correctly deliveries won't start until 2015. In other words, the actual building of the cars and most of the 100 jobs are still out on the horizon a bit. If there is one thing I can commend the current provincial government for, its realizing the need to vastly improve mass transit systems in the GTA. That city would not be able to continue to function healthily without major mass transit investments.

Originally Posted by tjernobyl

Serious flooding going on today. The City is under a state of emergency, as are some surrounding areas. 11-17 is washed out in Conmee, as are many other roads. Northwood Mall is flooded. Many reports of sewage backflows in basements in the East End and inland past May Street. A portion of the sewage treatment plant is underwater; citizens are asked to minimize any non-essential flushing. Kakabeka Falls is spectacular.

Sounds like another round of major work for restoration companies in Thunder Bay. Just like in 2008 (I think) when the last major flooding occured, out of town workers from the larger restoration companies will need to be brought in. The north side of town will all have new roofs, and the south side of town will now have all new basements. The insurance companies, well, they are paying out a lot of money in this town the last couple years.

Hopefully damage at the sewage treatment plant isn't too bad. I'm not sure what will happen if that thing can't run for any extended length of time. People can only not flush and avoid showering for so long and doing other daily tasks.

[TbayON]

double post

[vid]

Just replace the content with "double post".

--

This could be worse. If we had gotten maybe only 10mm more rain, the Neebing would have gone over its banks and flooded large sections of the city and made the problems in the East End and south Port Arthur that much worse.

I won't be surprised if the sewage plant is down for more than two months. Regardless, I'm taking a shower today. I was lucky enough to squeeze one in on Sunday night just before the storm hit but I don't want to go too long without it.

[TbayON]

A couple flood updates...

The city still doesn't know why the sewage treatment plant failed yet. With no further precipitation, the plant still won't be pumped out for another 24 hours. A temporary pumping set-up will be up and running in 36 hours, which should reduce the need for people to hold off on flushing water down the system.

Highway 11/17 could be closed up to two weeks between the Harbour Expressway and Kakabeka Falls. The OPP is reporting some of the worst washouts from this storm are found on that stretch of road. This is not surprising, since the MTO rather wait for roads to wash out in this part of the province before deciding to take any action when they already know there is a possible problem or a section of road is at risk.

As a result of flooding, the Resolute Sawmill has also shut down, but luckily it sounds like only until the end of the week. Damage to the bush road network is the cause and Resolute rather feed the pulp mill wood over the sawmill. I know driving the bush roads for work around Dryden, especially towards Ignace, for my job the past week has definitely not been easy and we didn't see near the worst of the rain. I can only imagine how bad it is around T Bay.

A few other things:

City council gave the go-ahead to applicant Ryan Jones to develop a 25 lot subdivision with 2 green spaces off of Mountain Rd last night. Single detached homes will be constructed. Linda Rydholm, who was against the proposal, said there are already 300 new homes being planned for Neebing Ward, with 100 along Mountain Rd.

The owners of the Painted Turtle Art Shop are going to run the Baggage Building Arts Centre at Prince Arthur's Landing. The centre is set to open up June 15th. HA! The naysayer peanut gallery is getting quieter all the time!

Lee Stuesser has been hired as the first Law School Dean at L.U. Other staff hirings are to begin in the near future. The school will begin offering classes in Fall 2013. Its exciting to see PACI start to bustle with activity again.

The Wabigoon Lake Ojibway First Nation is courting Dryden's support to place a casino somewhere in Dryden city limits. The rumour is it would be built at Eagle's Landing Golf Course. A feasibility study will be completed by June 15th, but studies have already been completed that indicate the Dryden area can support a casino.

[shreddog]

Heard that the Whalen building was damaged by lightning - but can't find anything in the local media - can anyone confirm or deny? thx.

NM - found the article here

BTW, can if anyone has any pictures of the floodway out by Chapples, they would be much appreciated ....

[russman]

Originally Posted by shreddog

BTW, can if anyone has any pictures of the floodway out by Chapples, they would be much appreciated ....

I took some photos of the diversion channel on Monday & Tuesday.

[TbayON]

Nor-Ont Resources has delayed releasing their feasibility study following the announcement by Cliffs about their transportation and processing intentions a couple weeks ago. Nor-Ont wants to take more time to study the implications of Cliffs using a north-south all weather road and the placement of the ferrochrome processing unit in Sudbury and how it will affect Nor-Ont's decisions in developing their deposits. I believe Nor-Ont favoured an east-west road through Webequie Junction, which I have heard is not a possibility in reality due to the geography up there.

There was a comment made on one of the CBC news articles concerning the local flooding that the N.A.P. Lac Des Iles mine was severely flooded and that workers have been sent home. I looked on the company site and searched around quickly, but could find no confirmation of what the poster on the CBC site said. We heard about the Resolute sawmill shut-down fairly quickly, so hopefully this is just something spun out of the rumour mill and not true, but time will tell for sure.

The Canadian Red Cross and the Salvation Army are taking donations to help victims of the Thunder Bay flooding nation-wide now. The easiest way to donate is probably to go on the Red Cross website, or to call either organization directly.

[shreddog]

Originally Posted by russman

I took some photos of the diversion channel on Monday & Tuesday.

WOW!!!

Thanks for the photos - I love seeing it full ... and imagining what would be going on in the east end if that weren't there ...

Also, looking at the flow on the downside of the diversion dam, any idea how high was the water at the pedestrian bridge by Delaney? Years ago during another flood situation they had some serious problems with the side shoring on that bridge.

Hope you all stayed dry!

[shreddog]

dp ... nm

[vid]

I don't think Lac Des Iles is closed. We've been supplying them with water the whole time, and they don't buy water when they're down.

Demand for bottled water has gotten so high that our depots are selling out on the same day that we stock them. It's starting to calm down but it is still insanely busy. I don't even want to think of what kind of chaos it would be if the city's drinking water supply was affected.

[TbayON]

Originally Posted by vid

I don't think Lac Des Iles is closed. We've been supplying them with water the whole time, and they don't buy water when they're down.

I was pretty skeptical of the comment when I read it, so I thought I would post it here anyway in hopes I would get a response something along the lines of something you just said. People talk in Thunder Bay, so it would've hit the media eventually (by now) and there most definitely would've been a press release to investors and stockholders by this point in time from the company.

Originally Posted by vid

Demand for bottled water has gotten so high that our depots are selling out on the same day that we stock them. It's starting to calm down but it is still insanely busy. I don't even want to think of what kind of chaos it would be if the city's drinking water supply was affected.

Best case scenario would have been just a boil water advisory due to contamination because of all the rain. Worst case scenario, the military's DART team would be called in. They have portable water pumping/treatment/purification units for areas hit by natural disasters where drinking water is required but unavailable (especially in third countries hit by massive devastating disasters, like Haiti with the earthquake). Water would also be trucked in from every conceivable direction in whatever form possible, whether in bottles or bulk.

[tjernobyl]

The intake is far enough into Lake Superior that I figure contamination from runoff would be fairly unlikely. The current in the bay is clockwise, so it would be relatively downcurrent from the plant, but there's plenty of room to diffuse.

A lot of rumours were going around about the water being unsafe to drink. Something about 'water treatment plant' and 'sewage plant' both having 'plant' in their names.