Watson Island has become a winner for the City of Prince Rupert, after years of legal battles and innovative transformation, by being awarded the Best Overall Large Project with a national Brownfield Award. Brownie Awards recognize rehabilitation projects across Canada on sites once contaminated, under-utilized and undeveloped that have been transformed into productive developments that support the economic vitality of their communities. …The City of Prince Rupert city was the unwilling recipient of the Watson Island property and inherited it through a tax sale after the pulp mill closed… and the site was a contamination risk with leftover chemicals. …The city was able to repurpose the pulping chemicals from the former mill back into the pulp industry elsewhere in B.C.