The city is working hard to maintain drainage ditches in the city, but they are also taking a new approach to the problem. A cleaning of the drainage ditch on Victoria Ave. was a test of a new way of cleaning out drainage ditches in the city.
The new way method is taking a large mulcher to clear out vegetation, instead of the previous method of taking an excavator and cleaning the ditch out that way. Clayton Werner with the City of Yorkton explains that the new process is significantly cheaper and faster than the previous method, requires less equipment and does less damage to the city’s ditches. The inefficiency of the previous method as well as the damage done was what spurred Werner to look at different options for cleaning up the city’s ditches.
“It cleaned it up really well, I thought, and it worked way better than the other way, which was more expensive too.”
The Victoria ditch was last cleaned out four years ago, and Werner says that they want to keep doing it every three to four years to keep it flowing and make sure that the vegetation doesn’t impact the flow.
The city was also impressed by the speed of the process, Werner says.
“There was roughly 2,000 meters, and he did it in five days.”
The next of the city’s ditches up for cleaning is the one on Dracup, though this will use the old method of using an excavator because the ditch is not being impacted by vegetation but by construction material, thanks to the amount of work going on in that area. Werner hopes to get it done using one of the long-stick backhoes being used in the road construction project, so they can save money on transportation and equipment.
“You can’t shred that, it’s just mud. That’s going to get done here in the next week I’m hoping.”
That is a special case, and going forward Werner expects to see the mulching method be the primary one used for cleaning up the ditches in the city impacted by vegetation.
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