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CME wins gold for Bridge River Townsite project

Whistler's Coastal Mountain Excavations has brought home a gold medal from the Vancouver Regional Construction Association's annual Awards of Excellence ceremonies at the Vancouver on Oct. 17.
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Whistler's Coastal Mountain Excavations has brought home a gold medal from the Vancouver Regional Construction Association's annual Awards of Excellence ceremonies at the Vancouver on Oct. 17.

The company, which has been based in the resort for 35 years, won the top prize in the category of President's Trade Award for with the multi-million dollar redevelopment of BC Hydro's Bridge River Townsite on the west end of Seton Lake near Shalath (west of Lillooet).

It was a silver award finalist, competing against other B.C. companies for the top prize.

The site, BC Hydro's employee base for its Bridge River Power Project, which generates about seven per cent of British Columbia's electrical supply, is about 100 years old. CME was the main subcontractor to PCL West Coast on the project.

Nigel Woods, president of CME, was thrilled.

"It's fantastic, really quite amazing. For a Whistler company, we're small time compared to the bigwigs in Vancouver, but our company did a hell of a job," Woods said

He added that it was unprecedented for a civil contractor to be distinguished by the industry this way.

"For this kind of recognition it is usually mechanical contractors or electrical contractors or larger general contractors. The President's Award means we're the best trade contractor in the province... the main guys in the project, they were great," Woods said.

It means tremendous new exposure for the company, he added.

"It was an unusual project and it's further out of town than we usually go. It's a remote and difficult place to get to... it was rebuilding the whole townsite of Seton," Woods said.

"The place has an amazing history, actually, including being an internment camp for Japanese detainees during the war. We didn't know that until we got there."