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a -won’t turn to-soup again with spring thaw

~~ Disgruntled Nass Valley drivers
were not hard to find last fall.
Many have said their marginal
road to the outside world had been
tumed into a 4-wheel drive trail
and they were not shy about pro-
nouncing their displeasure. The
fact that the road eventually froze
and acquired an acceptable driving
surface for the past few months is
of little consequence to these
people. They hold little hope their
road will survive the spring thaw.

According to Terrace district
highways manager John Newhouse
the worst may be over. A lot
depends on how the thaw occurs,
he says, but if things go reasonably
well, Nass Valley residents
‘shouldn’t see a repeat of the 75-
kilometre quagmire their road
became last fall.

The Ministry of Highways
accepted responsibility for the
‘former forestry road that connects
Terrace —- sometimes — to the
communities in the Nass Valley on
April 1, 1990, Newhouse says a

plan was developed last summer to
improve the road, now designated
the Nisga’a Highway, pending a
full-scale, five- to eight-year
upgrade program. This upgrade
was to consist of the application of
four inches of "high fines surfacing
aggregate" (a very fine crushed
rock) that would improve the road
surface and make it easier for
North Coast Road Maintenance to
keep it in shape.

According to Newhouse, the
contract to crush the high fines
aggregate was won by Kentron
Ltd., the contract to transport,
apply and compact the aggregate
was given to Vic Froese Trucking,
and responsibility for testing the
aggregate and completed road
surface was held by the Ministry
of Highways.

- Newhouse says the crushing and
testing went reasonably well, as
did the application of the road
surface... until October. Vic Froese
Trucking had fallen a little behind
in meeting an October 31 deadline,

and because the weather was dry,
began working at an accelerated
rate, This might have worked out
just fine, says Newhouse, if it
hadn’t begun to rain.

Unfortunately, says Newhouse,
by speeding up the application of
the fine aggregate, the trucks haul-
ing the material got well ahead of
the compacting process and "they
were caught". The rains came, the
uncompacted aggregate tumed to
soup, and the complaints began to
roll in.

The worst part was an cight-
kilometre section between the
north end of Lava Lake and New
Aiyansh, but there were problems
on a few other sections of the road
as well. Some low-lying sections
of road, says Newhouse, were
either inadequately. compacted or
improperly crowned. Rain on those
sections of road began to puddle,
and the puddles turned to mud.

In addition, October’s rains
caused work on the road came toa
halt, and about one half of the

length of road between New
Aiyansh and Greenville was never
completed.

Since the October crisis, though,

the Ministry of Highways and Vic

Froese Trucking have come to an
understanding and a portion of the
aggregate contract dollars were
withheld by the ministry to address
any future problems with the road.
The uncompleted Greenville sec-
tion was deleted from the contract,
as though it had never been there
at all, and it will be completed
under a new contract this year.

In spite of last fall’s problem,
however, Newhouse says Nass
Valley residents can look forward
to a greatly improved road this
spring. North Coast Road Main-
tenance has now assumed responsi-
bility for the maintenance of the
toad, and while Newhouse admits
there may be a few temporary
setbacks on some sections, he says
there are ways of drying the aggre-
gate. Once that’s done, and the

material has been properly com-
pacted and crowned, the road will
be far superior to what it was a
yearago. = -

Work will begin on the first
phase of a major reconstruction of
the entire road this spring.
Cuwrently slated for reconstruction
and paving is a 14-kilometre sec-
tion of the road north of Ross-
wood. The tendering deadline for
this job is Feb. 26. Also, tempor-
ary bridges at Wesach and Maroon
crecks will be replaced.

A problem on one other section
of the road won’t be addressed for
a while yet, however. Newhouse
says that a short section of paved

road between Terrace and Ross-.

wood above Kalum Lake that was
narrowed to one lane a number of
years ago will have to wait. He
says the hillside begins to move
every time there is a major rainfall,
and complete reconstruction of that
section will be required to correct
the problem.

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