A sinkhole that closed traffic on Production Way for several weeks last fall was not only an inconvenience for motorists, but it also put a hole in the city’s wallet.
The city’s finance committee recently approved $1.3 million in additional funding for several infrastructure projects, including an extra $552,000 for the emergency culvert replacement on Production Way.
City crews were called to the section of road on Nov. 13 after a large sinkhole appeared. One three-foot-deep hole swallowed the back wheels of an articulated bus along the stretch of road. The road was shut down as a safety precaution for a couple weeks until repairs were done.
An investigation determined that heavy rains that day “overwhelmed” the drainage system leading to the sinkhole.
The city also suggested the situation could be related to the windstorm from August, which blew debris into creek beds while subsequent rains washed that debris into culverts.
The city was forced to replace the storm sewer pipe that runs the entire width of the road.
James Lota, an assistant engineering director with the City of Burnaby explained storm sewers are deep underground and cost a lot of money to replace.
Meanwhile, the city is still trying to figure out who’s going to pay for an even bigger remediation project that occurred a few weeks earlier nearby.
Lota said the cost of the repairs to a work mishap on Stoney Creek Tributary 3 last October is in dispute with the contractor A.C. Paving Co. He also noted the city hasn’t totalled the bill, adding the final number won’t be known until later this year.
The incident happened on Oct. 31 when a construction mishap led to a series of events that eventually forced a large amount of sediment into the creek and put the fish habitat in the waterway at risk.
During the rehabilitation of a culvert on the Stoney Creek tributary, an A.C. Paving employee, who was maintaining a filter screen on a pump at the construction site, got his boot sucked into the inlet hose of the pump.
