21 Oct The 2000’s Overview
This decade was dominated by infrastructure development projects and then by build-up projects for the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics:
- RAV Rapid Transit (now Canada Line): control, construction, legal
- P&O Ports (DP World) Centerm: construction, leases, topographic
- Westshore Terminals: machinery alignment, precise as-built
- Fraser Surrey Docks: topographic, soundings, leases
- GVRD Seymour Capilano Twin Tunnels: control and scanning
- Ashlu Creek Run of River Penstock Tunnel: control
- Terzaghi Dam, BC Hydro: control and hydrographic
- Pitt River Dam: control and hydrographic
- Williston Lake: control and hydrographic
- Wareham Dam, Mayo, Yukon Energy: sounding and laser scanning
- King Edward Village: air space & strata
- The Vancouver Olympic Village (now Village on False Creek): topography, consulting, construction and legal
- Chevron Refinery, Burnaby
- Canada Place Pier Extension
- Champlain Mall, Vancouver
- School District 44, topographic, construction, scanning and legal
- Bentall Tower V, Vancouver
- UBC TEF 3, Vancouver
- GVRD HPN 1st-order vertical control network
- Scotch Fir Point Estates, Powell River
- Mountain View Cemetery, Vancouver
Again, Land Claims dominated the work north of 60. The volume of contracts completed in this decade was equal to the previous decade (54). Claims worked on included:
- CYFN
- Tlicho
- Nunavut
- Sahtu
- MARR Land Claims start up in BC.
Engineering (construction) survey work continued in Phoenix, AZ.
With higher prices and world demand for minerals on the rise, mining took off in BC and the Yukon. Major engineering survey work was undertaken in the Yukon on mine infrastructure (access roads, mine sites, etc.). Tunnel control surveys were completed at the Ekati Diamond Mine in the NWT for BHP Billton Diamonds Inc. and for Hudson’s Bay Mining & Smelting Co. in Manitoba.
Underhill expanded services to provide three dimensional laser scanning. This technology allows for the collection of millions of 3D positions, in seconds, to millimetre accuracy and revolutionized topographic, architectural, structural, mechanical, and as-built surveying. Projects included:
- Chevron Canada Oil Refinery
- Wareham Hydro Electric Dam, Yukon
- Tunnels: Seymour–Capilano Twin Water Tunnels, North Vancouver and Dunsmuir Tunnel, Vancouver
- Heritage schools seismic upgrade, North Vancouver and Vancouver.
International Geomatics consulting tapered off. Two GPS–gravity surveys were conducted in Eritrea and Anchorage, Alaska; two GPS photo control projects were done in California and Wyoming; and a GPS mine control survey for Strata Gold in Guyana was performed.