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Detour in place as crews begin repair to Monday’s Highway 20 washout

A detour is in place as Highway 20 remains closed west of the Sheep Creek Bridge after a washout early Monday left a 150 metre-wide gap in the roadway.
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The Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure said work is beginning to repair Highway 20 just west of the Sheep Creek Bridge where early Monday a washout damaged 150 metres of the roadway sending debris to the Fraser River below. A detour has been in place since Monday afternoon. Monica Lamb-Yorski photo.

A detour is in place as Highway 20 remains closed west of the Sheep Creek Bridge after a washout early Monday left a 150 metre-wide gap in the roadway.

As of late Monday afternoon a detour was approved publicly by the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure (MOTI).

“We had a number of locals using it already but we did not want to advertise it until we had it in a condition where we were comfortable with messaging that out,” said Todd Hubner, MOTI regional manager Tuesday.

The detour goes via Soda Creek Road, Buckskin Road, West Fraser South Road, Chilcotin Meldrum Road to Highway 20.

The route is well signed with single lane sections and traffic control and dust control in progress.

“People can expect delays,” Hubner said, noting the next update expected will be Wednesday at noon.

Hubner confirmed there was an incident involving a logging truck on the detour road early Monday, but while he did not know the details, said it had been rectified and he did not believe there were any injuries.

“Industry who uses Highway 20 extensively is working closely with us and has basically agreed to shut down hauling, for today anyways, to limit traffic on that route,” Hubner said.

On Monday a geotechnical engineer came from Kamloops to do a site inspection and provided the ministry with a report.

“We met with him late Monday afternoon and were given guidance on the first steps in re-mediating the damage that we’ve got there,” Hubner said. “That involved de-watering the slide. There was a fairly large piece of debris quite high up near highway elevation that was holding back a significant amount of water and subsequent to our engineer being on site we were directed that we could actually go in there with a large excavator and remove that plug, for a lack of a better term, to allow that water to escape.”

The excavator completed the work Monday evening around 10 p.m. giving full access to the site for further work to repair the damaged road.

The next step is to prepare the site for reconstruction.

On Tuesday morning equipment was brought in for cutting the slopes back to ensure they are safe and “mucking” out the base of the slide to remove any unsuitable material for embankment reconstruction and culvert installation, Hubner explained.

“There was an existing culvert there, but we don’t have a root cause in the incidence. There isn’t one identifying feature in the field that is saying ‘this is what caused this.’”

It could be a combination of factors, he added.

“One could be high groundwater, there is a small creek in the area and we think it was certainly flowing, and we did have some water pooling on the ditch side of the embankment, but certainly nothing that would have been of a significant concern to us leading up to the incident.”

Agriculture irrigation does take place nearby but Hubner said there is nothing indicating it was a contributing factor at this time.

“There are no broken pipes or anything like that that we’ve found to support that theory.”

Hopeful the work will be completed soon, Hubner said they are striving to get it open for this coming weekend.

“I know it’s ambitious goal but you have to start somewhere and that’s the goal we have established for ourselves and we are going to endeavour to do that. In the meantime, the detour is functioning well.”

Hubner said the damage cost is estimated between $100,000 to $200,000.



Monica Lamb-Yorski

About the Author: Monica Lamb-Yorski

A B.C. gal, I was born in Alert Bay, raised in Nelson, graduated from the University of Winnipeg, and wrote my first-ever article for the Prince Rupert Daily News.
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