| Kitimat | |||
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| District Municipality of Kitimat | |||
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Kitimat
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| Coordinates: | |||
| Country | Canada | ||
| Province | British Columbia | ||
| Regional District | Kitimat-Stikine | ||
| Government | |||
| • Mayor | Joanne Monaghan | ||
| Area | |||
| • Total | 242.63 km2 (93.7 sq mi) | ||
| Elevation | 40 m (131 ft) | ||
| Population (2006) | |||
| • Total | 8,987 | ||
| • Density | 37/km2 (95.8/sq mi) | ||
| Time zone | PST (UTC-8) | ||
| • Summer (DST) | PDT (UTC-7) | ||
| Website | http://www.kitimat.ca | ||
Kitimat is a coastal city in northwestern British Columbia, in the Regional District of Kitimat-Stikine. The Kitimat Valley, which includes the adjacent community of Terrace, is the most populous urban district in Northwest British Columbia. The city is a company town planned and built by the Aluminum Company of Canada (Alcan) during the 1950s.
Kitimat's municipal area is 242.63 km² (93.69 sq mi) by design. It is located on tidewater in one of the few wide-flat valleys on the coast of British Columbia. The Kitimat Valley is one of the few locations on Canada's Pacific coast that has substantial room for affordable growth, although between 2001 and 2006 the population of Kitimat dropped by 12.6%, the largest percentage decline of any Canadian census division.
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"Kitamaat" in the Tsimshian language refers to the Haisla First Nation "People of the Snow".
The municipal town of Kitimat came into existence in the 1950s after the Provincial Government of British Columbia invited Alcan to develop hydroelectric facilities to support one of the most power-intensive of all industries: the aluminum smelting industry. The company built a dam, 16 km (10 mi) tunnel, powerhouse, 82 km (51 mi) transmission line, a deep sea terminal and smelter. The company also designed, laid out and assisted with the initial construction of the city.
Alcan employed the services of city planner Clarence Stein in order to ensure the community design facilitated an environment that would attract and retain workers. Today, Kitimat benefits from the quality of planning resulting from the Garden City design concept. Stein's design kept industry well separated from the community with large areas for expansion. He also created looped streets surrounding an urban City Centre Mall and linked by over 45 km (28 mi) of walkways connecting to all areas of the community. The substantial greenspace areas and future expansion concepts designed by Stein have been upheld to this day by the city planners. Even today Kitimat's natural environment is a predominant feature cherished by citizens and reflected through community branding: Kitimat - "A Marvel of Nature and Industry".
Aluminum producer Rio Tinto Alcan is the main employer in the municipality. Local government, School District, small manufacturing and service/retail are secondary contributors. Secondary core activities include engineering, import of petrochemical products (Methanol and Condensate), and metal fabrication. Approximately $5 Billion in manufacturing investment is anticipated in the 2010-2015 period with a further $5 plus Billion in the investigative stage over the next decade. Anticipated investment includes an approximately $2 Billion modernization to the Rio Tinto Alcan facilities and $3 Billion in the Kitimat LNG export development on Haisla Industrial Land at Bish Creek. The export facility would see natural gas piped in from the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin (particularly from shale gas developments such as the Montney and Horn River) and shipped to Asian markets.[1]
Pending energy projects that have identified Kitimat as a strategic gateway include Pacific Northern Gas's Pacific Trail Pipeline (Federal and Provincial Environmental Assessments Issued) and Enbridge's Gateway Pipeline (currently being reviewed by the National Energy Board). Additionally, Pembina Pipeline expressed preliminary interest in assessing a line that would carry condensate to Alberta for thinning crude oil.
Additional investigations into Clean Energy Developments, a Kitimat Port Development project featuring break-bulk port facilities and consideration of the best uses for the former Eurocan Wharf. As well, the decommissioning of the former Eurocan Pulp and Paper facilities or a slimmed down operation are still under consideration. There is also renewed interest in mineral development/potential in the Kitimat Area. The surrounding community of Terrace is also in advanced stages of approval for a number of clean energy projects along with the associated infrastructure for linking those projects to the provincial electrical grid.
Air services for the community are provided through Northwest Regional Airport, with connections to Prince George, Smithers, and Vancouver.
In the 1920s, the Provincial Government of British Columbia extensively evaluated the province's hydroelectric generating potential. In the late 1940s, the Canadian Government sought to tap the untapped resources of northwest British Columbia. All this led to the identification of the Eutsuk/Ootsa/Nechako drainage basin as a potential site for a sizable reservoir. The potential of this vast system of rivers and lakes prompted British Columbia to invite Alcan to conduct a detailed investigation of the area. Alcan was searching for a site for a large aluminum smelter, an activity requiring vast amounts of electricity. Alcan concluded that the site was more than adequate to generate the required electricity, and decided to build a smelter there. The timing was right because the post-World War II boom saw a rising demand for aluminum.
In the 1950s, after signing the agreement with the British Columbia government for land and water rights, Alcan undertook the Kitimat/Kemano Project, arguably one of the most ambitious Canadian engineering projects of the 20th century. The project required not only building the Kenney Dam to reverse the Nechako River, but also boring a 16 km (10 mi) tunnel under Mt. Dubose of the Coast Range to the generating station, also built under Mt. Dubose. The electricity from Kemano is transported 80 km (50 mi) across mountains via a custom built twin circuit transmission line.
Further up the Kitimat River, the town of Kitimat was carved out of old growth forest. The company invested over CA$500 million (equivalent to CA$3.3 billion) and employeed over 35,000 workers over the five years required to build the Kenney Dam, a hydroelectric generating station under Mt. Dubose, the small community of Kemano, a 250,000 tpy aluminum smelter, a deepwater port open year round, a complete townsite designed for a population of 50,000, and a paved highway to the outside world. As a result of this large project, other companies saw the potential of the area, resulting in further industrial development in the Kitimat valley.
The only highway accessing Kitimat is Highway 37. Kitimat is located 58 km (36 mi) south of Terrace. Prince Rupert is 202 km (126 mi) northwest, and Prince George is 631 km (392 mi) to the southeast.
| Climate data for Kitimat | |||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Month | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | Year |
| Record high °C (°F) | 12.2 (54.0) |
11.1 (52.0) |
18 (64) |
25.6 (78.1) |
32.8 (91.0) |
35.6 (96.1) |
36.1 (97.0) |
40.4 (104.7) |
33.3 (91.9) |
22 (72) |
13.3 (55.9) |
10 (50) |
40.4 (104.7) |
| Average high °C (°F) | −0.4 (31.3) |
2.4 (36.3) |
6.4 (43.5) |
11.1 (52.0) |
15.7 (60.3) |
18.6 (65.5) |
21.2 (70.2) |
21.2 (70.2) |
16.9 (62.4) |
10.1 (50.2) |
3.8 (38.8) |
0.7 (33.3) |
10.6 (51.1) |
| Average low °C (°F) | −5.5 (22.1) |
−3.4 (25.9) |
−0.8 (30.6) |
1.7 (35.1) |
5.1 (41.2) |
8.7 (47.7) |
11.2 (52.2) |
11.2 (52.2) |
8 (46) |
4.2 (39.6) |
−0.8 (30.6) |
−3.7 (25.3) |
3 (37) |
| Record low °C (°F) | −25 (−13) |
−23.9 (−11.0) |
−19.4 (−2.9) |
−10 (14) |
−6.7 (19.9) |
−0.6 (30.9) |
3.9 (39.0) |
2 (36) |
−2 (28) |
−13 (9) |
−24 (−11) |
−25 (−13) |
−25 (−13) |
| Precipitation mm (inches) | 284 (11.18) |
211.7 (8.335) |
167.4 (6.591) |
123.3 (4.854) |
83.4 (3.283) |
75.5 (2.972) |
60.4 (2.378) |
90.5 (3.563) |
173.2 (6.819) |
321.1 (12.642) |
300.2 (11.819) |
299.9 (11.807) |
2,190.5 (86.24) |
| Source: Environment Canada[2] | |||||||||||||
The Alcan project has not been free of controversy. Politicians, aboriginal groups, and farmers and residents of the Nechako lakes district have long opposed the contractual release of provincial resources with the profits going to a private firm. Many individuals and groups protested the flooding caused by the creation of the new reservoir, with the destruction of homesteads, villages, burial grounds, and millions of board feet of prime timber, and the disruption of prime fish habitat on the Nechako River.
In the late 1980s, the company began work on the Kemano Completion Project which would have doubled the generating capacity of the Kemano plant. After Alcan had already bored a second tunnel through the mountain and extended the generating station within the mountain, the Provincial Government of the day called a halt to the project for a variety of reasons. Having invested over 500 million dollars in the project, Alcan took the provincial government to court. This controversy was settled when Alcan and the provincial government signed the 1997 KCP agreement.
Most of the first decade of the twenty first century saw the District of Kitimat in court with the Provincial Government over the electricity rights granted to Alcan and its obligations to the Province and to the District.
Rio Tinto Alcan plans to increase the output of its Kitimat smeltery from 250,000 MT/Yr to 400,000 MT/Yr and has committed $300 Million to this effort. Since late 2008 relations between Rio Tinto Alcan and the District appear to be more cordial with the two parties working to achieve modernization of the aluminum facilities.
| Skeena Country | Terrace | New Hazelton | ||
| Prince Rupert | Kitimat Ranges | |||
| Kitimat | ||||
| Hecate Strait | Kemano |
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