Town of Norman Wells New Pumping Station

About the project

From an interview with CPI President Don Snodgrass:
“One of our first Arctic projects was in 1978 for the Town of Norman Wells, in the Northwest Territories. They had designed a pumping station on the McKenzie River, with an outflow line to the middle of the river, which is half a mile wide,” says Snodgrass, noting the job was being done in the winter, with the team about 2000 feet from shore.

“We had to drill into the bedrock in the riverbed, and create a trench for the pipe. We’d drill through the ice, blast the rock out and then bring the excavator onto the ice to remove the rock. Then we’d weld up the pipe, drop it in place and start again.”

“It was an extremely tricky project – we leveraged our relationship with Esso to pull it off – but it was really interesting work and a successful job for us,” he says, adding that challenging projects are still part of CPI’s service offerings.