Report of the SIRRA Roads Committee – January 27, 2022

Committee Purpose: to provide liaison and communication facilities for the duration of the roads rehabilitation project.

The committee was formed by SIRRA in mid-January and has spent the time intervening obtaining information about the plans for road rehabilitation following the November 2021 storm damage to major roads on Saturna.

Communication has been established with Emcon (Road Maintenance - Andre and Raeanne and the Area Roads Manager from the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure (MoTI), as well as Parks Canada.

General Information about Road Repair

• Federal funding will be available to repair damage caused by the November storm;
   
• road materials have arrived and has been stockpiled at various locations, with the major portion having been delivered by barge on Wednesday, January 19th;
   
• Emcon, the roads maintenance contractor for Saturna, will oversee the projects, with their sub-contractor Northridge Excavating carrying out the repair work;

• following the storm-related repair, it will likely be back into the same situation as before, where provincial money may come available each year for projects, but there is wide-area competition for the marginal funding allowed for improvement projects.

Roads That Will Undergo Storm Damage Repair

1. East Point Road

Washout near address 405:

• major repair to the washout on East Point road has been done in the past week with two-way traffic now restored;
   
•  resurfacing will be done at a later date where it will be coordinated with other paving projects.

January 2022 Storm Surge Damage:

• the road is showing signs of landslip near 358 East Point Road due to erosion of the waterfront;
   
• there is a long stretch of the road on the waterfront that is vulnerable to erosion;
   
• repair to the damaged portion of the road will be done, but longer term protection under consideration by MoTI.

2. Narvaez Bay Road

• an additional culvert will be added in the larger washout at address 206 (the original metal culvert survived. It is fairly large and functional, so will be left in place);
   
• the culverts at the entrance to the Park just beyond address 116 will require replacement. However, the culvert of size and type desired will not be available until late March. In the interim MoTI is looking at the possibility of installing a bridge that will have capability for equipment and material to be transported to address 206 for the repair of washouts and other road damage in that area that resulted from the November storm.

GINPR

• Parks Canada reports that an opening date for the Narvaez  Bay campground and area is indefinite and depends on infrastructure repair to the Park being completed. That infrastructure repair work will not begin until reliable vehicle access is restored through rehabilitation of Narvaez Bay Road.

3. Harris Road

• Harris Road received emergency repair to make it passable in November 2021;
   
• Work remains to be done and planning for further repair is in progress. At a minimum, it is expected there will be repair an upgrade in the area of the landslip near the intersection of Staples Road.

Committee Members:

John Gaines – East Point Road area

Peter Clark – general safety and Narvaez Bay Road area

Doug Hayward – Harris Road area

Ron Hall – SIRRA director/committee coordinator

SIRRA Roads Committee Contact: info@sirra.ca