Glen Korstrom
Northern News Services

INUVIK (Jul 24/98) - Inuvik town Council has acted decisively to help make developers responsible while saving walking trails -- all in one swoop.

Parking lot construction will cease at Boot Lake apartments until its drainage culverts are restored to their original condition according to a motion council passed a its July 8 meeting.

Recent construction of a parking lot adjacent to the apartment building clogged culvert causing some water to overflow into the Jimmy Adams Peace Park and its trail system.

Previously, water drained through a culvert under Duck Lake Street and then under Boot Lake Road into unused brush.

"(The trail system) not only means a lot to me. It means a lot to the whole town," said Don Patterson who lives next to Boot Lake apartments and across the street from the park.

"Before the whole area was hardly used. Now it's used all winter. It's also a way for the kids to get to the beach area without having to go on the highway."

Council nixed the suggestion to install a new culvert under Boot Lake Road on the same side of Duck Lake Street as the apartment complex as that culvert would drain into the park.

Essentially, the move to stop construction is to keep the original drainage flow.

Patterson said water flows downhill all the way from Loucheux Road so drainage into the park would be substantial.

"I would estimate in a year a million to four million litres of water would run down there," he said.

"It's quite a large drain and that would be all dumped into the park if they put the culvert across."

Coun. Dan Davis urged council to take action because otherwise draining water could damage the walking trails and the "time and money spent developing the trail system."

"We should force culverts to be put back where they were and clean the willows out of the ditch," said Davis alluding to a previous problem with drainage of having willow trees growing in the ditch.

Coun. Vince Sharpe agreed and pushed for the stop work order.