Construction services company EllisDon to lead Jasper wildfire debris cleanup

Construction services company EllisDon, headquartered in Mississauga, Ont., has been appointed to co-ordinate wildfire debris removal from Jasper. 

About one-third of the buildings in the Alberta mountain town were destroyed from a wildfire in July.

The company was selected "on behalf of participating insurers," said Mario Fiorino, the vice-president of legal and general counsel for the Insurance Bureau of Canada, because of the company's "demonstrated track record in Canada with respect to dealing with catastrophic loss events." 

Fiorino said that based on their experience with prior natural disasters in Fort McMurray and Slave Lake, "co-ordinated debris removal delivers efficiencies and cost savings to those insured that have been impacted by unfortunate total losses." 

Insurers to foot the bill

Local and regional contractors will perform much of the work, said Kevin Smith, EllisDon's director for project advisory and management in Calgary.

The company has organized a tender for debris removal vendors. It expects to have pricing to communicate to insurance companies in early October. 

EllisDon is co-ordinating the cleanup, but it will be the insurance companies that will be footing the bill. The pricing will depend on factors such as the size of property, footprint of the foundation, and the number of structures on it (such as garages and detached structures). 

For insured properties, Smith said, they're confident that they will be able to provide optimal pricing based on the cost advantages that come with the size of the project. 

"We're going to have much more visibility on this once our tender closes and we can get into some more specific details per property," Smith said. 

For non-insured properties, Smith said, "I understand that this is going to be a cost incurred to those residences, and we will look at that at a very, very specific case-by-case basis to ensure that they can make the right decision for their property, whether to engage EllisDon, or engage another party."

There are some special considerations around debris removal in Jasper, Smith said. 

The town doesn't have a landfill, and the closest one is in Hinton. 

"Hinton has opened up a certain portion of their landfill to accept this material, and we've been working in close co-ordination with West Yellowhead Regional Landfill to co-ordinate this effort," Smith said. 

"They do have limitations on the material that they are able to accept on a daily basis," he said. 

"That is a risk item that we're looking at, and we're trying to figure out some contingency solutions so that when we do start that extraction process of that debris, we don't run into any bottlenecks on the disposal side." 

Local company wants to participate in cleanup

There's about 350 destroyed structures in the town. 

Terry Lanigan, an operations manager at Jasper Concrete, said how quickly the debris will get removed depends on the number of people and machinery engaged in the process. 

"There's a substantial amount of work," he said. 

Lanigan said his company would be willing to participate in cleanup efforts. 

"We're very fortunate that we lost some equipment, but the majority of our equipment survived. So, we're able to participate in this," he said. 

Lanigan said some employees of his company were back at work as early as July 29. 

"We've been back in town for quite some time," he said. 

"There's some people living in temporary accommodations," said Lanigan, who is currently living in Hinton. "So, overall, my staff is doing very well."