Contractors to begin work in the River Valley Trail in Williams Lake October 1

Contractors will begin danger tree falling work in the Williams Lake River Valley following last Summer’s wildfire.

Director of Municipal Services for the City of Williams Lake Rob Warnock said they need to remove all the burnt wood down in the Valley.

“We were hoping it would have been done the first week in September but we had those very high temperatures at the beginning of the month and we weren’t allowed to do any logging for fear of starting another fire. With a change in the weather and all the wet weather we’ve had they are going to start this Wednesday (October 1).”

Warnock said he was told by the contractors who are looking after the work for the City that we’re looking at anywhere from 6 to 8 weeks from the time they go down there cutting the wood and stacking it and getting it out of the River Valley.

“We also have to shutdown the power every morning so we have All Tech going down to shut the power off going to the lagoons. They’ll shut it off in the morning and then turn back on at night for us.”

The work had initially been delayed this Spring due to an active osprey nest located on a power pole in the area.

“We were hoping, fingers were crossed at the beginning of they that we would be able to do the work in July but we discovered that nest.” Warnock said, “Hydro lost one of their poles due to an osprey nest, I believe was at the end of June, beginning of July, during a storm it caught fire and they lost the pole and the nest and we had to go through some loops to get it checked out. Once we found out there was no osprey in there we were able to remove it and continue on with our work.”

Warnock reminds the public to stay out of the River Valley, people are going to be wondering what’s going on but there will be signs down there “Active Logging” and we cannot have people down there.

The River Valley Trail remains closed from the Comer Street entrance to the City’s sewage lagoons.