Emergency repairs are needed to fix the partial collapse of a roughly 100-year-old culvert at Waechter Creek, at the Simpson Extension Road.
City staff say there is significant potential for further collapse, which would lead to upstream property flooding, with a potential washout of a 22-metre high fill embankment and the sanitary sewer trunk main within it. It could also negatively impact FortisBC gas lines and a downstream environmentally sensitive habitat.
Staff predict the project will cost about $750,000 and is expected to be completed by August 2014.
The collapse is most likely due to the age of the pipe, the height of land over the culvert and the large trees growing there. The culvert was installed in the early 1900s to allow the railway to build the 22-metre embankment across the small valley.