Extreme tides creating construction challengesSylvie Paillard
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Residents and visitors hoping to take walks along the estuary trails over the past several weeks have been greeted by a large plywood sign reading "Trail Closed".
That's because construction crews have been working to repair a drainage culvert along the trail that collapsed on New Year's Eve.
The 35-year old drainage pipe collapsed due to the usual erosion caused by waterflow and age.
"It's nothing out of the ordinary," said Mayor Ian Sutherland.
"It's not a symptom of anything, just the fact that these things all have a certain life span and things happen that cause them to break down."
Construction crews attempting to repair the pipe, which is adjacent to the sewage outfall at the sewage treatment plant, have been challenged by extreme tidal changes.
"The last few nights they've been working on the drainage culverts and because of high tides and low tides they've had to do it at certain times" said Sutherland.
Sutherland said that monitoring is being done by Cascade Environmental to ensure that there is no contamination to the estuary. Edith Tobe of the Squamish River Watershed Society said that she knows first-hand how challenging tides can be when working in the estuary.
"It's probably the worst time of the year to work on this because we're under very high tidal situations right now," she said. "When you're dealing with a high tide, even four feet, you've got some water that's going to be entering into your site and you're going to have to pump it out. Here you've got 15-, 16-foot tides, it really aggravates any construction site."
Tobe said she's satisfied that environmental consultants on the site are doing everything they can to mitigate the possibility of contamination.
"Absolutely there's always a concern of contaminants," said Tobe. "I really don't have that many concerns about what they're doing and it's nice to know that it is being checked and double-checked and triple-checked."
The cost of repairs is approximately $70,000, half of which will be paid by federal and provincial government monies under the wastewater treatment upgrades agreement.
