The Lheidli T’enneh and McLeod Lake Indian Band joined forces to develop a new industrial park in the North Fraser Area near Summit Lake.
It will be called Shas Ti-Dlezeh Industrial Park and will be close to 1,000 acres in size.
Lheidli T’enneh Chief Clay Pountney spoke with MyPGNow.com following the announcement.
“We’ve had many proponents come into this area with these big ideas within Prince George and its airshed but we’ve faced a lot of backlash on the last few projects we’ve tried to do so it just made sense for us to move it away and to maximize benefits for our communities the way we want to do business.”
“Prince George is essentially a big bowl so you want to pull things out of that and we’re going to make more industrial areas so that we can bring more people to this area.”
McLeod Lake Indian Band Chief Harley Chingee stated this builds upon a previous partnership both groups combined on earlier.
“The first thing we did was the educational stuff with UNBC whereas there was going to be free tuition and books for students in our respective nations that are going to attend university courses.`
While Chingee noted the first nation is open for business, the surrounding environment remains the top priority.
“Going forward, it has to benefit the nations as well as the environment because anything that is going to complicate the environment we have a problem with.”
“We value the wildlife that’s still up in our neck of the woods. Right now, we have a serious problem with moose populations so we have to work with the province and Canada so that these stocks aren’t totally depleted.”
With the partnership now finalized, work with local governments and the province will begin shortly.
In May, West Coast Olefins President and CEO Ken James told MyPGNow.com their plastic plant that was slated to be built on the BCR site in Prince George will now be re-located to McLeod Lake.
Chingee outlined that the dialogue between McLeod Lake and West Coast Olefins remains positive.
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