Glen Korstrom
Northern News Services

NNSL (Aug 16/99) - Though motorists using Highway 3 may have to wait 11 years for it to be fully paved, the good news is that the GNWT has placed a high priority on the project.

"Basically that's our next priority for the Department of Transportation," said director of Highways and Engineering Rob Nelson.

"But it could take 10 to 11 years at the current funding level (of about $6 million per year.)"

Federal funding could speed up the process.

"There is nothing committed yet in the federal government's national highway project," said GNWT senior transportation planner Russ Neudorf.

"But there is a lobby effort by the provinces and territories and some industry in the south. We're hopeful there will be something in the next budget."

Currently, workers are blasting precambrian rock on the highway just outside Rae and just outside Yellowknife.

Pelly Construction has the contract to complete 12.5 kilometres of the paving towards Yellowknife from Rae while Robinson Trucking Limited has the contract to do 4.5 km of paving from Yellowknife towards Rae.

"The decision to go with two contracts was that if we made the job too big it would rule out a lot of Northern contractors," said Nelson.

"There are few Northern contractors who can play on the large jobs."

Pelly Construction is on a three year contract while Robinson Trucking is on a two year contract.

Next year the multi-year contracts will once again be put out to tender if the project gets cabinet approval in the main estimates, Nelson said.

He said Pelly construction also budgeted more than $500,000 towards training workers for the blasting -- skills that are transferable for mining jobs.

Currently there are 15 trainees on site, 68 have pre-certificate or certificate training courses and nine are fully certified.

"Once you get past Rae, it is the precambrian shield so it's just rocks and water," Nelson said.

"That's why the construction is set to take longer per kilometre than the paving up to Rae."