Bridge out of commission
Backup to main crossing made life easier for heavy truck drivers and residents in Pangnirtung
Casey Lessard
Northern News Services
Monday, July 27, 2015
PANNIQTUUQ/PANGNIRTUNG
Officials in Pangnirtung are hoping the Nunavut government will help rebuild a land bridge over a small stream that was destroyed last month due to ice-clogged culverts.
Officials in Pangnirtung are hoping to rebuild the secondary land bridge that gives easier access for heavy equipment to the town's dump site and the new housing complexes. The bridge was destroyed last month due to flooding. - photo courtesy of Shawn Trepanier |
"Just because of the high melt-off and high river flow, it just washed out the bridge," said senior administrative officer Shawn Trepanier.
"We also caused it to wash out a little bit because we dug a hole so that it would not flood any more. Not to save it but to prevent any more flooding because the water level was rising quite high. A lot of sea cans were down by that area, so more to prevent damage."
Most of the half-dozen or so culverts clogged with ice this winter, and the two remaining ones were unable to expel the water fast enough, he said.
The bridge was supposed to be temporary, a backup for the main structural bridge, but it gives water and sewer trucks and other heavy equipment easier access to the new housing complexes and the dump site.
"It's perpendicular to the main structural bridge, and is probably 30 to 50 metres away," Trepanier said, noting it was well used.
"During sea lift time, it was easier to bring the sea cans across because the main structural bridge, you can only fit one piece of equipment on the bridge at a time."
Plus, if the main bridge has a problem, some residents will be cut off.
"The town is not split directly in half, but what I consider the new part of town, from the new housing complexes to the dump site, that's where the bridge crosses," he said.
"If we don't have any bridge, then all those people would be cut off from main services. It acts as a secondary bridge for us and allows for better traffic flow as well.
"Technically, we can't get an excavator across our current structural bridge, so it actually has to go through the river. It's faster for our trucks to use that instead of waiting for someone to cross the road one way or another (on the main bridge)."
The hamlet has asked the Department of Community and Government Services to help support the bridge's reconstruction, and discussions were underway mid-July.
Trepanier would like to see any replacement built to last.
"We have to have a better engineering design for it, because it was only meant as a temporary bridge," he said.
"We have to have a better design so that it will not flood again. A similar structure with better culverts so we don't have freezing going on."
