Hay River (July 28/03) - There will be no more skating down Woodland Drive this winter after the town of Hay River announced that it will spend $428,000 to fix a troublesome watermain near City Hall.

"There have been breaks in the line every winter for the last three years," said mayor Duncan McNeill at Monday's council meeting.

"(When that happens) we have to block off the road which inconveniences business."

Store owners along Woodland Drive will be happy to see the old watermain gone said Doreen Farrents, president of the Hay River Chamber of Commerce.

"When the main ruptures in the middle of winter, the area becomes a skating rink," she said. "That's bound to hurt business."

McNeill is confident the repairs -which should take two or three weeks- can be done without hurting business in the area.

"There will be minimal disruption to the street," he said.

"Most of the work will be done by a process called horizontal drilling," said Robert Dean, part of owner of Stan Dean and Sons, the company contracted to do the work.

Dean says workers will drill a hole in the street and pull out the watermain -which is about 10 inches in diameter- section by section. They'll slide the new pipe in through the same holes.

"There will be no need to close the street," he said.

Dean says the pipes under Woodland Dr are at least 20 or 30 years old and badly corroded. They will be replaced by hard, plastic PVC pipes that have a longer shelf life.

"They will definitely bee more durable, especially in the winter," he said.

The project wasn't part of the city's 2003 budget, so $241,000 had to be transferred from the planned replacement of a watermain under the Instrument Landing System road, which runs along the West Channel.

"The watermain on Woodland drive was definitely a priority," said Hay River public works director Todd Pittman.

"It has a history of breaking, while the ILS one does not."

Pittman said the city still plans to replace the watermain on the ILS road, but a date for the repairs has yet to be determined.

To make up for the rest of the shortfall, the town will take $115,000 from its infrastructure reserve and will receive a $125,000 grant from Municipal and Community Affairs.