By Gagandeep Ghuman
Published: October 25, 2018
A new dike upgrade project will involve hauling large quantities of rock and gravel and create significant truck traffic (over 8,000 truck trips) in Brackendale from this November to July 2019.
The project, however, is of critical importance—upgrades to the Squamish River dike along the Upper Judd Slough in Brackendale.
In fact, these upgrades to the dike are the highest priority upgrades given the significant consequences of failure.
This particular section of dike protects the residential and commercial centres in Brackendale and Garibaldi Estates.
The truck haul route will follow along Government Road (past Don Ross Middle School and Brackendale Elementary), Judd Road, through Fisherman’s Park and along the dike through Squamish Nation I.R 15 (Aik’wucks), according to a staff report presented to the council.
The contractor will submit a Traffic Management Plan to reduce impacts and maintain public safety, staff told council.
The District will formalize the traffic management plan in conjunction with the contractor and communicate it to school district as well as the Brackendale Owners and Tenants Association.
The district will also work closely with residents of the land where work will take place to reduce construction impacts. Traffic to Fisherman’s Park will also be impacted during construction.
The project will consist of raising, widening and adding rip-rap erosion protection for roughly 1.2km of dike along the Upper Judd Slough in Brackendale.
Whistler Excavations Ltd was awarded the $3,871,616 tender for the upgrades to the dike. The district has also received a grant for $3.9M under the Gas Tax Strategic Priorities Fund to complete this project by July 2019.
While the district’s flood protection plan recommends the Squamish River dike to be upgraded to a 1 in 500 year standard in the long-term, this project only proposes to bring the dike to the Provincial 1 in 200 year return period standard at this time.
The District will be utilizing District-owned gravel from Crown-leased Lot 69 and is anticipated to result in significant cost savings, staff told the council in a recent report.
