Housing and feeding the G8 security forces

HUNTSVILLE, ON-Imagine building a complex to house and feed 4,500 people on an unserviced site in an old gravel quarry in just 16 weeks. From a hotelier's perspective, that's almost enough people (single occupancy) to fill three Delta Chelsea Hotels-the largest property in the country at 1,590 rooms.

That's exactly what  Aramark did to accommodate RCMP, Ontario Provincial Police and Canadian Forces personnel providing the security at last month's G8 summit in Huntsville, Ontario.

"We provided the whole camp setup, from beans to buckets to bullets," project manager Stephen Sinclair, VP operations for Aramark Remote Services, told CLN on a site visit just before the summit.

"It's the first time we have done a project like this in Ontario.  No company in Canada has ever done a camp this size, this density and this fast.  It's record-setting-the single largest gathering of security forces ever in Canada."

Tim Belanger (left) and Stephen Sinclair

Aramark has been in the remote feeding business since it acquired Travers Food Service Limited in 2002.  Travers had done the camp for the 2002 G8 in Kananaskis.  Last time, Travers did a joint venture with ATCO Structures & Logistics, and this time ATCO is on board as a subcontractor.

Half the beds come from Aramark and half from ATCO, which is well-known in the oil patch for their remote worker housing.

"All of the dorms, sleeping accommodation and kitchens come from Western Canada," Sinclair said. There were 765 truckloads covering 2.142 million kilometres of roads-all oversized loads.  Over a 10-week period, the trucks pulled in and there was an assembly line with large, 40-ton cranes.  As the trucks came in, trailers were offloaded and set in place.

Servicing the site required 1.4 miles of piping, and 270,000 gallons of fire water, and equal amounts of potable water, plus sewage storage capacity of 320,000 gallons. There are 250 miles of electrical cable on site-if stretched end to end, the cables would reach all the way from Toronto to Algonquin Park, or almost all the way from Edmonton to Calgary.

Dorm rooms are simple, clean and modern-all singles for this group. The 12 pods are named after provinces and territories. And individual dormitories are named after fallen members of the RCMP or OPP, or Canadian military operations.

There are a few different trailer configurations. Some units have two sets of two double rooms sharing a washroom, though in this case, there will be only one person per room.

Some are what's called a "Jack and Jill" layout, with bigger beds, in two-room units joined by a bathroom.

In a configuration widely used in the oil patch, some dorms consist of 49 single rooms, plus seven or eight bathrooms and laundry facilities.  Each of these consists of eight trailer loads, one with water for the bathrooms and laundry.  Each three-piece bathroom is separate, and includes a sink, toilet and shower-important since approximately 20 per cent of the camp personnel are women.

The facilities are pet-friendly as well, with about 30 to 40 working dogs on site.

One hundred and forty housekeepers service the rooms every day, and linens are changed every five days.

There's even a Tim Hortons on the property.

Dining dimensions

The site includes a massive dining tent that's 345 feet long and 100 feet wide, with seating for 1,700. That's about the length of a football field, but only five eighths of the width.

The kitchen is made up of 11 kitchen pods, each with a specific function such as dishwashing, production or soups, stews and sauces.  The coolers are at one end of the setup, with separate units to accommodate meat, produce and more.

One large deck oven at the facility can handle 42 full hotel pans, or 1,000 portions at once. Tim Belanger, project manager, foodservice for Aramark's Business Dining, said they expected to serve more than 130,000 meals during the 10 days of operations.

Working on a 10-day menu cycle, the culinary theme is Canadian, locally-sourced foods, Belanger said. "All our meals have a regional theme like Alberta Prime Rib or Ontario Braised Pork Rib."

The foodservice is also environmentally friendly.  All the water bottles will break down in six months. And while disposable dishes and cutlery often are used in camp settings, this location will use real china and cutlery.

While the core management team is from Aramark, students from Holland College, George Brown, Humber, Georgian and Canadore help make up the team of 200 in the camp's culinary workforce.

G8 TAF by the numbers...

The TAF is a unique project that is ground breaking in many ways:

• Largest ever camp for security forces in North America
• Largest camp built in 16 weeks
• Largest camp ever constructed by Remote Workplace Services

THE SITE

• 4,523 beds total (50/50 between ARWS and ATCO)
• 1.4 miles of piping for fire water main
• 1.8 miles of potable water piping for potable water replenishment
• 250 miles of electrical cable

 LOGISTICS

Just getting all the equipment to one location was a journey:

• 765 truck loads from Western Canada to site: 2,142,000 km or 1,338,750 miles
• 40 truck loads from Eastern Canada to site: 24,000 km or 15,000 miles
• Total miles travelled for all equipment 1,353,000 miles
• 27 different carriers, 7 weeks duration

STAFFING

During operations, Aramark and its contractors will have over 400 staff from all across Canada to provide the RCMP the high level of service Aramark has committed to:

• 16 Project Management
• 220 Culinary staff
• 103 Housekeeping staff
• 45 Maintenance
• 7 Firefighters (24/7)
• 10 Fire watch personnel

CONSTRUCTION

• 175 workers at height of construction representing five Ontario unions on a project specific labour agreement.
• 16 weeks of construction
• 62,000 metric tonnes of gravel capping material
• 56,000 square meters of filter cloth
• 6.8 metric tonnes of lumber

CULINARY EXPERIENCE

At full population of 4,500, estimate 13,145 meals per day for an estimated total of 131,450 meals during operations.

• 3,520 man hours of training in Food Safe, OH&S, S.T.E.P.S., WHMIS
• Over 300,000 bio-degradable bottles of water

ROOM SERVICE

During the operational phase each occupied room must be cleaned and made each day and all consumables replenished in the common areas. Cleaning includes all dorms, sleepers, washroom facilities and the dining tent:

• 5,000 towels washed daily
• 4,500 beds made daily
• 14,000 linen changes during operations