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New Victoria graving dock will offer high-paying jobs

New facility will reuse and treat any water required for repair process
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Point Hope Maritime plans to build a new graving dock at its site on Harbour Road in Victoria. Courtesy City of Victoria

The new graving dock slated for the Point Hope Maritime shipyard will be a welcome addition to Victoria’s industrial base and, according to Mayor Lisa Helps, represents exactly the sort of jobs the city needs.

“These are good jobs – clean jobs – and exactly the sort of jobs we want to be attracting to Victoria,” she said. “[They] start at a salary of $90,000 and go up from there, and it’s in an industry that will provide those jobs in an environmentally friendly manner.”

The $50-million graving dock is a project of Point Hope Maritime, a company with a history of servicing vessels on Victoria’s harbour since 1893. The new facility, to be built on the existing footprint of land on Harbour Road, will have the capacity to service most Coast Guard and some Canadian Navy ships, as well as many vessels operated by B.C. Ferries.

Ships entering the graving dock for service are generally in place from one to three months to complete work.

According to Point Hope Marine general manager, Riccardo Regosa, the graving dock will be able to service any vessel up to 170 metres (570 feet) in length with a draft of up to six metres.

The project was given the green light at last week’s City of Victoria committee of the whole, but still requires approval from Transport Canada, the Ministry of Fisheries and Oceans and Environment Canada.

Regosa is confident the company’s plans are solid and will have no trouble in getting the additional approvals needed for construction to start.

Helps reiterated that ship repair today is significantly different from how the industry on Victoria Harbour was once operated.

No water has been discharged from the existing facility since 2014 and the new plans include plans to change the slope of the facility so that any water used flows back into catchment facilities where it will be treated and reused.

Once operational, the new facility’s dry dock will employ more than 200 workers.

“This project goes far beyond the $50-million investment. We see a lot of real estate investments that invest at least that amount of money in the City,” Helps said. “This is a project where the initial investment is great, but the project will keep contributing to the economic health of the City for decades to come.”

The graving dock will see most work being done near the shoreline. No new buildings are included in the plan and no changes are called for on the Harbour Road frontage of the property.

No disruption of is anticipated for any harbour traffic as a result of the construction or operation of the facility.

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