‘It’s shameful for a vehicle to be put on there’
Lark Harbour mayor says province failing to maintain culverts, roads in community
Wade Park is growing tired of an increasingly problematic issue in his community.
The ditches and culverts in Lark Harbour are getting dangerously old and outdated, and are at risk of complete failure, says Park.
Some culverts are up to 40 years old, if not older. Park is the mayor of Lark Harbour and has gone to the provincial government multiple times looking for help, and he says he hasn’t gotten any.
“We had, the other day, 93-millimetres-plus rainfall. Luckily, we never had a big lot of snow, but the culverts, the infrastructure that’s going down to Bottle Cove Road, it’s probably 30 to 40 years or more old. The size of the culverts right now isn’t big enough to carry the rainfall that we had,” Park says.
“There’s been no ditching done there for the last 10 years-plus and, after the winter snowclearing and such, they got all the sand that gets put on from the road pushed off with the wind. From the plow that all gets pushed down into the ditches and that fills the ditches.
“And then you got debris that blocks the so-called entrance of the culvert, which stays there. And these are such small culverts, too.”
DANGEROUS SITUATION
He says the combination of all those factors creates a dangerous situation in the town.
Park says that for many west coast communities, including Lark Harbour, being on an incline doesn’t help.
“But the biggest concern in Lark Harbour really is going down Bottle Cove Road. It’s probably like a stretch of a kilometre or a little bit more. That and it’s all downhill, basically. The culverts on the inside part just can’t carry the water anymore,” says Park.
“They’re too small. You look at it and they are probably rusted out, too. I don’t even know if they’re clear all the way through.”
NOT ONLY TOWN
He points to communities like Cape St. George, where recent social media videos depicted entire culverts being washed away after heavy rain. Park fears Lark Harbour could very well be next.
“We’ve been told it’s the provincial government responsible. We’ve been reaching out to the DOT (Department of Transportation). We’ve reached out to the federal department and they said no, no, it’s a provincial thing,” he says.
He calls the issue “shameful,” and says the issue lies with roadwork in general.
“It’s shameful. I mean, like the road conditions to begin with, and then there are culverts and lack of shoulders on the sides of the roads. Like it’s shameful for a vehicle to be put on there,” Park says.
“We’ve been crying for road improvement. I actually met with the minister of Transportation and Infrastructure, John Abbott, and voiced our concerns about this issue. Been reaching out for the last four or five years, for sure. And there’s been nothing.”
TOURISM HURT
Park says the issues go beyond safety. He says tourism and the fishery are both affected.
Park says trucks may soon start refusing to travel to the community. Lark Harbour doesn’t have a fish plant, and processes most of its catch at the fish plant in Curling.
“It was last year or the summer before that the tour buses wouldn’t come down. There was a time they refused to come over that section of road because it was so bad. This was tour buses from one of the many cruises that come into Corner Brook,” Park says.
“Like I told Minister Abbott, I said, ‘You’re promoting your tourism and Lark Harbour is so scenic and so beautiful and as a town we need them tourism dollars to survive, too.’ If we can’t get the vehicles down the road, it’s pretty sad.
“They just said the ultimate word, ‘Look into it.’ We haven’t heard nothing back. It’s frustrating.”
LIMITED OPTIONS
Residents have started to blame council, says Park, but he points out it’s the province’s responsibility to maintain provincial roads. Even if he wanted to maintain the roads, council doesn’t have the money to do so.
“The residents get on the council’s case and we got to say it’s not our roads. It’s not the town’s responsibility. We just represent the people and say, look, we’re pushing for it. We’re just as much frustrated as they are,” says Park.
He has thought about doing things himself, but says it’s not right, and the town doesn’t have the money to maintain a road that isn’t theirs.
“We can’t afford it. We’re only a small town of 500 people and we have a pretty large amount of by-roads that we take care of,” he says. “We’re just basically keeping our head above water keeping them up to snuff.”
GOVERNMENT’S VIEW
Transportation and Infrastructure Minister John Abbott agrees with Park that only provincial dollars should be used to maintain provincial roads.
Abbott says the province has been making good progress on culvert upgrades, and the quality of culverts has been increasing.
“As we look at our own provincial highways, when we do any upgrades on the road itself, we are replacing culverts and we’re upgrading them. If you look at where we were 10-15 years ago, the lifespan of the culvert would have been roughly 25 years,” he says.
“As we replace culverts now, their lifespan now will increase from 25 years up to 75 years, and in some cases, now up to 100 years. We’re getting a lot more rain runoffs (due to climate change). We’re recognizing that. We are upgrading all the culverts from Pasadena to Corner Brook because of that.”
ENGINEERING DECISION
Abbott says mayors can be frustrated when it comes to priority for upgrades, but that’s more of an engineering decision than anything else.
“When we look at how we allocate funding, our first order of business is to make sure the basic infrastructure — in this case culverts — are upgraded. Some towns, depending on where they are in our cycle, may be in the queue, as it were, for getting those culverts done.”
SAFETY FIRST
Abbott says he wants to look at the government’s commitment to safety. He’s open to towns coming to the department and having discussions.
“If the town is concerned about that, they will obviously contact us, either through our engineering department or through my office,” Abbott says.
“We’ll make sure our engineers are fully aware of that concern. If it’s the municipality that’s not in a position to fund it, we will prioritize that and work with the town to figure out how we get that done. Because, at the end of the day, the safety of the citizens and motoring public will be the ultimate driver of how and when we respond.”
FEDERAL DOLLARS
Abbott is hopeful that federal government funding will trickle down to the province, and says he can commit to matching any federal funding for culvert and ditch upgrades.
“There’s a larger national discussion that needs to take place, and we need more federal dollars to help provinces deal with that,” he says.
“I think that’s recognized by the federal government. We just need them to make sure that they invest, hopefully in the coming budget and in subsequent budgets.”