A deal has been struck to build an oil-spill response hub at Nanaimo Harbour as part of a multimillion-dollar effort that will see the opening of bases on Vancouver Island, the deployment of cleanup vessels along ocean shipping lanes, and the hiring of more than 100 workers.

Western Canada Marine Response Corp. said it has signed a 25-year lease for land and water in Nanaimo to serve as its main Vancouver Island base.

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The corporation inked the deal with the Port of Nanaimo for 130,000 square feet, made up of land and water lots on Nanaimo Harbour.

“There is going to be an office-warehouse with a command post and a training facility,” Michael Lowry, spokesman for Marine Response, said Tuesday from the organization’s head office in Burnaby. “The Nanaimo base is going to be our hub for Vancouver Island.”

The bases are required by the National Energy Board as a condition of approving the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion.

Nanaimo will be headquarters on the Island with bases in Sidney, Becher Bay and Port Alberni, as well as an offshore supply vessel based at Ogden Point, Lowry said. Two more bases will be on the Lower Mainland.

Temporary offices in Victoria and Nanaimo are being used until the headquarters in Nanaimo are complete, he said.

Marine Response has a budget of $150 million for enhancements to its service. Improvements will double its capacity and are intended to slash response times in half in B.C.’s south coast waters. There will be five new response bases, 120 new employees, and 40 new vessels, posted at strategic locations along B.C.’s shipping lanes, Marine Response Corp. said.

Waterfront moorage and a two-storey office-warehouse are part of the project at Nanaimo Harbour. Construction cost in Nanaimo is pegged at $10 million.

“We are expecting to go to tender for construction in the fall,” Lowry said. The “construction start and end date will follow once we award the work.”

The Nanaimo base will have 35 full-time response personnel and 15 response vessels.

The first small work boat arrived last week and is now stationed in Sidney, Lowry said.

Most of the vessels will be delivered in the first quarter of next year, he said. They are being built in Prince Rupert, in the U.S. and overseas.

Kevin Gardner, Marine Response president, said in a statement: “We are building an entirely new marine response infrastructure on Vancouver Island and the Nanaimo response base is the heart of it all.”

Ewan Moir, president and chief executive officer of the Port of Nanaimo, said the facility will bring “substantial benefits” to Nanaimo and Central Vancouver Island.

“Not only do we acquire a highly skilled team and specialized equipment for environmental responses, locally we also achieve long-term economic benefits from an established and professional organization,” Moir said.

Nanaimo Mayor Bill McKay said the new headquarters will be a good use of the Port of Nanaimo property. “Nanaimo is centrally located to be able to respond up and down the Island.”

cjwilson@timescolonist.com