Prince Rupert has been recognized by the National Brownfield Awards this week for its work on Watson Island.

Nicknamed “The Brownies,” the awards spotlight projects that redevelop previously unusable sites. The city and its partners were awarded the title of Best Overall Large Project for their work on the rehabilitation of the island at the Nov. 14 ceremony in Toronto. 

Watson Island was the site of the Skeena Cellulose Pulp Mill from 1951-2001 before the company went bankrupt, leaving the city to own the island and the abandoned mill. 

“This has set a great template for what we can do moving forward… and take what was once both an environmental burden but also a financial burden to the city and convert it into an environmentally friendly site,” says newly sworn in Mayor Herb Pond of the remediation project. 

In 2017, the city started work with a series of partners including McElhanney, the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change and Trillium Environmental Ltd. 

One of the biggest examples of successful remediation on the island was the old pulp chemicals that were extracted from the site and utilized by other mills around Canada. The project also achieved a 95 per cent recycling rate for materials that were left on the island according to the announcement.

By 2021, one portion of the island had already been fully decommissioned and rebuilt for a new Pembina propane transfer and export terminal. 

The city hopes that this is just the start of what the island could achieve in terms of industrial development. 

Listen to the CFNR story with Sean Carlson and Prince Rupert Mayor Herb Pond below: