Emergency phase of construction for River Valley nearing completion

As we near the end of August, construction in the River Valley is still underway.

Emergency Operation Crews are still working to mitigate damage from the compromised sewer pipe, while also working on bolstering roads, bridges, and unstable slopes that have been damaged by the floodwaters.

Gary Muraca, the director of public works with the City of Williams Lake, said that crews are making good progress.

“We’ve completed a stream diversion around the lagoon,” he said. “We’ve now taken that flow away from the unstable banks so it won’t be a problem going forward. The stream is now probably moving about 25 metres away from that location. It has now been lined, and the water is flowing through it.”

Muraca continued that the contractor is now between bridges 12 and 13.

“They are just doing some sanitary line repair. Just re-bedding and burying the line where the road washed out. Then there are two bridges after that, and then we should be at the Fraser.”

After reaching the Fraser River, Muraca said that it would end the first phase of construction.

“This is still in the emergency phase, or the response phase,” he stated. “We have to get down to the Fraser to get access to our sanitary mainland to be able to counter them to make sure that our effluent is making its way to the Fraser and not spilling out at any point in the creek. We have to get down there to get that done.”

“Once we see that we go into what is called the recovery phase, all these bridges were put in on rip-rap, and timber structures for the emergency access,” Muraca continued. “We will have to put these on permanent embankments, and do designs and go through permitting, and stuff like that which will be the next phase which will be the recovery phase, and that is going to go into next year, if not the next year after that as well.”

Muraca added that though construction may see that it is going slow, crews are working faster than expected.