The resurfacing of the runways at the Estevan Airport’s is ahead of schedule, according to City manager Amber Smale, and the project should be finished by the end of the month.
Smale said the project has gone smoothly. One runway has been fully resurfaced, and crews have started to work on the other runway.
The project needs to be finished by the end of August to meet the funding requirements from the Provincial Disaster Assistance Program (PDAP), which has committed to fund 60 per cent of the project’s final cost.
Weather conditions would be the biggest potential issue for the resurfacing project, Smale said. The smoke from the forest fires in northern Saskatchewan could also delay completion.
“The weather has been great this year,” said Smale. “There have only been a couple days when we've had rain days.”
The airport was shut down for a few days last week. Contractors worked on an area where there was overlap between two runways.
“We did communicate with all the known operators that could be coming in this week, and it was a good week to close it down,” said Smale.
The City’s other large resurfacing project this summer is expected to start in August. Sixth Street will be paved from 13th Avenue to Souris Avenue South, and Souris Avenue South will be resurfaced from Sixth Street to Fourth Street.
“We're delaying that as much as possible so that it opens the same time as the truck bypass,” said Smale. “A good indicator for us when to shut down will be when they actually start paving the bypass, which I think they're pretty close to starting.”
Smale said she hopes the Sixth Street-Souris Avenue project could be finished in mid-September. It should take about one month.
If the project is finished at the same time as the truck route, then the trucks won’t be chewing up the fresh asphalt on Sixth Street and Souris Avenue South.
“There'll still be trucks on it, but it won't be the magnitude of what it normally is,” said Smale.
The City won’t be replacing any infrastructure beneath the roads. Smale said there are complications in design of the water mains.
“They're in a zig-zag pattern, and we had looked at putting a straight line in, but we can't do it at this point in time,” said Smale. “We're going to continue with the surface work, and we're going to look at the other options for the existing lines.”
Smale expects it would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to replace the underground infrastructure.
The sink hole that developed in the 1300 block of Sixth Street in early June stemmed from a water main break. She is confident the underground issue in that area has been resolved.
