Firms frustrated by lack of access

Manager eager to get equipment, but says he got phone-call runaround

Some Fort McMurray companies are getting the runaround as they try to recover equipment they left behind and return to work, one businessman says.

John McPherson, general manager of Forthryte Services Inc., said Monday he has been trying to retrieve a dozen drinking water, sewage hauling and garbage trucks from his firm’s Fort McMurray facility for five days, but can’t get a straight answer on who to contact for access.

The vehicles service work and industrial camps and help keep them operating.

But when he contacted the RCMP seeking access, they told him to try the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo emergency operations centre, which replied with an email indicating it would respond as soon as possible. A provincial hotline referred him to the RCMP and the municipality, which both suggested he call the hotline.

“It’s like you have a wheel without spokes. Once you get inside the wheel, no one knows where the rest of the information goes,” McPherson said. “They have to step up their system so it communicates properly.”

Surveillance cameras show the equipment left behind wasn’t damaged by the fire.

Two of three additional trucks staff drove to safety are now north of Fort McMurray, ready to return to service, but McPherson said he can’t obtain permission for them to use the municipal water filtration, sewage treatment and garbage disposal sites.

“Where it’s hard (is) we had people from outside Fort McMurray coming to do the work. We’re literally sitting at the road, we can see our fleet, and we can’t access it.”

Denis Lainey, owner of Arktik Daylighting, said he had similar problems reaching two hydrovac trucks left in Fort McMurray that are needed for oilsands construction excavation and other jobs.

“It’s not clear what’s happening up there … It’s impossible to get anybody to give you a clear answer,” he said. “As far as we understand, they’re bringing people from Edmonton, from Calgary, to offer the same service we do, and we’re local. The only reason we can’t do the same thing is because we can’t get access to the equipment.”

A Wood Buffalo spokesman said the regional municipality remains under a mandatory excavation order and Alberta Health Services has issued an air-quality warning.

“Safety is of the utmost importance, and due to the above-mentioned factors businesses have not been granted re-entry at this time,” Russell Baker wrote in an email.

“The municipality is in the process of identifying essential businesses with the goal of inviting them in ahead of the re-entry process.”

He didn’t say whether firms with existing contracts are allowed more access than other companies, or whom businesses should contact for access approval.

McPherson, who’s temporarily managing Forthryte from an Edmonton hotel room, said he was finally able to find out whom he needs to call, but still doesn’t have the approvals he needs.

One of the key recommendations from the 2011 Slave Lake fire — improved communications — doesn’t seem to be followed in Fort McMurray, he said.

“I’m not being critical of the process. I realize the city and the provincial (emergency operations) people have a daunting task in front of them, but sometimes when you’re in the forest you can’t see it for the trees.”

They have to step up their system so it communicates properly. JOHN McPHERSON, Forthryte Services