It’s not called Water Street for nothing.
A local resident of the backstreet sent a formal letter of complaint to the Village of Burns Lake (VBL) outlining a list of problems.
“The road is a disgrace,” wrote Kaye Mackereth, noting the VBL has been repeatedly contacted about these concerns. “I am not asking for a great deal of money to be spent, just basic maintenance. The road is full of potholes and the dust, even if people go slowly, is up over the tops of the trees. Perhaps you should put out a counter strip to realize the amount of traffic that uses this road then you would see we are not the only ones affected, though it seems I am the only one who says anything.”
A long discussion ensued around the council table, with director of public works Dale Ross explaining that the situation is not at all simple, even though it looks so to the businesses and residents of the laneway that runs just a bit inset from the Burns Lake shoreline in behind landmarks like Outdoor Adventures and Starland Timber Mart.
“There’s swamp right there,” said chief administrative officer Sheryl Worthing, noting the spring freshet brings flood risk and generally high water table to that spot. “We can fix it, but it’s going to be very expensive.”
This question has been raised before, said councillor Kristy Bjarnason, who asked what had been done since then?
“Nothing’s been done since last year,” said Ross, except the application of calcium liquid as a dust treatment, but that only works in gravel road segments because “it just washes off” any of the parts with recycled pavement crushings, and that is the case on Water Street. The calcium holds off the dust only in sections. Also, it hadn’t been applied yet this year, due to supply issues.
Making the situation worse is the heavyweight truck traffic on that street, mostly pertaining to the movement of building supplies to and from Starland. Those trucks often travel past the buildings at the south end of the street where Mackereth lives. Those trucks also deposit dust in places that once had the recycled pavement packed down.
“It’s not really an easy situation,” Ross said.
Mayor Henry Wiebe also ascertained that “if you build up the road, then you create other problems” with water’s behaviour.
“That’s correct,” said Ross. “It is not an easy fix; it really isn’t.”
The councillors and staff involved in the meeting came to the conclusion that calcium applications should be kept up fastidiously, basic road maintenance should be done in ways that helped, and the biggest part of the solution might be to force heavy trucks to only work in the Francois Lake Drive-Starland compound-northern Water Street loop and disallow such tractor-trailers from using the southern portion of the street.
Research and consultation was going to be done to make sure these options were the best for the situation.