Abitibi, Boise to make next move on Customs facility

The ball is now in the court of Abitibi-Consolidated and Boise Cascade, CAO Bill Naturkach said, after meeting with town administration about what it would take to build a new “off-bridge” Canada Customs facility here.
Naturkach gave a verbal report to the committee of the whole of council Monday, along with the stack of information he had given to both companies containing a number of costing scenarios on how a new Customs facility may or may not be done.
“There could be minimal impact depending on how the specific items are dealt with,” he said. “We just identified the issues and put options forward. Now it’s a matter of dealing with them.”
Issues having to be dealt with include whether or not to relocate or re-direct storm sewers, how water and hydro service will be affected, and if the roads chosen for the truck route already are built to the proper standards.
Naturkach said at this stage it’s still impossible to put a price tag on what the project may cost.
“We didn’t put a package together of what’s the best way to do it,” he said. “We put together a package of the ways to do it. Saying it’s going to cost x-thousand of dollars may be a moot point if there are other reasonable options.
“Until the company decides how it would like to approach the many issues, the spectrum is just too board at this point [to tell],” he added.
Naturkach said the Customs facility probably will be a large part of the agenda during council’s regular meeting with Abitibi-Consolidated, likely sometime in April.
“The company was very appreciative of the work we’ve done so far,” Naturkach said. “Now that we’ve identified all the items, we need them to look at them. They’ll have to see how they’ll deal with these items.
“Once they do that, we can gel up how those things can be accomplished, both with dollar values and then those will go to council as a recommended position,” he added.
“The ball is in the companies’ court at this time.”