Construction activities for Highway 97 at Cottonwood Hill, Blackwater Road at Knickerbocker, and Kersley Dale Landing road are all anticipated to begin later this year.
The Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure said that the other seven Cariboo Road Recovery Projects continue to progress through project planning.
On Highway 97 at Cottonwood Hill, Deputy Director of the Cariboo Road Recovery Projects, John Babineau said crews are still onsite to clear trees in advance of the start of the next phase of project construction later this year.
He added this work follows the installation of four groynes, which redirect flows away from the slide area along the eastern bank of the Cottonwood River last Fall.
“Groynes are like triangles of rock that are placed in the bank of the river and they’re deigned to shift and deflect the centre line of the river away from from the slide.” Babineau said, “It’s a light touch approach to reducing the erosion that a river can cause on the landslide and those were installed last Fall. And we’ve been monitoring their effectiveness coming into this freshet season.”
We asked Babineau if the Highway 97 at Cottonwood Hill project was on schedule.
“This is one of ten projects that got underway back in 2021 that’s in response to the flooding and landslides that were experienced in 2020 and 2021.” Babineau said, “We’ve been on schedule from our perspective taking that time to make sure that we build the right project and it’s really exciting to see work getting underway on the Highway and on some of these priority side roads this construction season.”
The Ministry said tree clearing has also been underway for the Kersley Dale Landing Road Project, and this site preparation work is scheduled to wrap up within the next two weeks.
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