Trans Mountain’s first priority has and will always be the health and safety of our workforce, their families and our communities. In response to the evolving COVID-19 pandemic, Trans Mountain and our construction contractors for the Trans Mountain Expansion Project have been working diligently together to ensure adherence to all advice and direction from government and health officials both provincially and federally.
Trans Mountain continues the uninterrupted safe operation of the Trans Mountain Pipeline and construction of the Trans Mountain Expansion Project. We are grateful to all our people who continue to work under these challenging conditions and are committed to taking all appropriate measures to keep everyone safe, healthy and able to work.
Trans Mountain is constantly monitoring the guidelines from health officials and some of the specific measures we, together with our construction contractors on the Expansion Project, are taking include:
- implementing a work-from-home approach wherever possible
- implementing restricted access measures at our control centres
- ensuring non-essential workforce members are not entering any of our worksites or offices
- staggering work shifts to minimize the number of people on any given site including adhering to the recommendations being provided by health authorities
- following physical distancing guidelines between workers – at on-site and in-site offices
- staggering lunch and coffee breaks to minimize number of people gathering
- minimizing or eliminating in-person meetings, holding necessary meetings outside (for example, safety meetings), in smaller groups or via technology
- enhancing cleaning and sanitization protocols and increased availability of sanitation supplies
- Where work cannot be safely undertaken without working in close proximity, a health and safety advisor and supervisor must be consulted for approval, and enhanced PPE and appropriate hygiene practices used to carry out the work
- increasing bus, vehicle and trailer cleaning requirements and frequency reducing the number of people being transported per vehicle to adhere to health authority recommendations
- ensuring that workers orientation includes COVID-19 expectations, awareness and prevention
- ensuring all individuals have access to appropriate safety equipment, and understand the expectation surrounding personal hygiene
- temperature testing people entering the sites for fever or sickness
- using Health and Safety personnel to monitor implementation of COVID-19 response guidelines on site
While each work location is unique, Trans Mountain and our construction contractors are adopting government and company health and safety measures to protect our workforce on the ground, and ensure work can safely continue. We continue to revisit and update our plans and monitor implementation on a daily basis.
