(File photo/northeastNOW)

By Ben Tompkins

Building the Future

Plenty of work ahead for Humboldt, as growth due to Jansen mine approaches

Sep 4, 2024 | 5:07 PM

With Stage 1 of BHP’s Jansen potash project now halfway complete, the realities of massive short-term growth for local municipalities are setting in.

In the City of Humboldt’s case, they are the largest city or town within a close proximity to the mine’s site and will likely see the largest amount of population growth, once the project is fully constructed by 2029.

This means the city will have to spend considerable focus on making Humboldt feasible to house up to another 3,000 people, who will also have to shop, play, work, and have access to other essential services within the area.

According to Humboldt’s city manager, Joe Day, there is a lot of work to do before the mine is up and running.

“We expect a fair bit of growth in residential and commercial spin-off activity over the next few years, resulting from the activity at the mine around Humboldt, so certainly there is quite the task to prepare everything and get everything ready,” he told northeastNOW.

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“There is a challenge in ensuring that we’ve got all the infrastructure in place for the growth of our residential neighbourhoods. It takes a lot of investment to get the pipes in the ground and the roads built, and I think it will always be a challenge, especially when there’s no certainty as to how fast things will grow.”

What is certain is that not everything related to the expansion of services is up to those at the municipal level.

Day explained that whether it’s education and training, emergency services, childcare, or recreation spaces, other parties are responsible for helping that growth.

“Certainly there are partners in our community that lead in those areas, but we’re all having to work together to try and find the solutions, because rapid growth brings those challenges of how to get everything in place, to meet the demand, when the demand shows up,” he added.

“We’re all working together to try and plan out where the next phase of growth is going to happen. Those are all the things that we’re going to have to work on to try and find solutions for to make sure that those amenities are in place for a growing community as well. We’re working with our provincial partners, our local agencies, the school systems, all of those, to try and understand what their needs are.”

Work has begun on some residential land and lot development in order to service the growth in Humboldt for the next little while.

As far as the mine is concerned, however, Humboldt is uncertain how many of the 3,000 people they will get, as there are other communities in the region that would fit inside BHP’s ‘safe driving distance’ zone.

Right now, the city is mostly in the planning stage as they coordinate with other local municipalities, with the help of Sylvite four-six, in order to understand everyone’s infrastructure needs.

The hope is to work together, study together, and share investments, as to not compete for the upcoming arrivals.

Humboldt is “excited to continue to work with their municipal and First Nations partners in the area, as the benefits continue to roll in.”

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