Minor Headache over underground cable

October 5, 2013 · 0 Comments

Just when Shelburne council believed the laying of the watermain to service Summerhill Communities was all but complete, the developer’s engineers discovered that the surveyed layout that had been approved was in conflict with other buried utilities, such as communications and sewer line.

The discovery forced a realignment, which the town’s public works director Scott Wheeldon views as “minor,” but which required approvals of the ministry of transportation (MTO) and an emergency meeting of town council quickly to approve a new agreement with MTO.

Mr. Wheeldon said in an emailed response that the developer’s engineers and representatives of the MTO conducted a site inspection.

MTO approved a proposal to continue the water main layout along the shoulder for a distance of about 15 metres, according to CAO John Telfer, but with a catch: Should a future need to widen Highway 10 arise, the town would be responsible for moving the water main to make way for it.

It wasn’t immediately determined what responsibility developer VanDyk would have if such an event occurred.

However, most townspeople would hope that a long-awaited truck bypass would be created ahead of a road widening within town boundaries.

On the issue of locating buried utilities, Shelburne council has approved an agreement with “Ontario One Call” (ON1Call), which is touted as reducing chances of damage to infrastructure and “frequency of work undertaken in the public right-of-way without applicable permits,” as well as the opportunity to provide applicable bylaw requirements to excavators, and, somehow, “a safer working environment.”

Shelburne’s infrastructure would be registered prior to June.

ON1Call says there’s an estimated $40-million annual infrastructure damage in Ontario and that 82% of that is caused by failure to obtain locates.

The Guelph-based company was founded by Bell, Enbridge and Union Gas in 1996.

Ontario now has legislation in place to require all municipalities to register their underground infrastructure by June 2014.

By Wes Keller