Don’t worry, no one is looking for oil or proposing to develop a quarry on the municipal green space.
The work is actually a part of the City of Corner Brook’s major undertaking to replace the storm sewer that runs beneath the Majestic Lawn and the White House Lawn across West Street.
The next significant phase of the project, to be carried out this coming summer, will be the replacement of the storm-sewer culvert beneath the Majestic Lawn. That will essentially involve digging a trench, installing the new storm sewer pipe and covering the hole back in.
The approach on the White House Lawn section will be much different. The storm sewer is so deep beneath that lawn that the open trench concept will not be feasible.
Instead, tunnelling beneath the lawn will have to be used to replace the storm sewer when the time comes for that phase.
The tunnelling phase will not be done this year. The drilling that commenced Monday involved using split-spoon soil sampling techniques to remove core samples that will help better determine what will be involved when the time comes to do that latter phase.
Gina MacArthur, the City of Corner Brook’s communications officer, said the latter phase of the project is currently in the final stages of design, and core samples taken during the “technical investigation” happening this week will help determine what those last details will involve.
“They are looking to see what equipment they need and where the tunnel needs to go for it to work,” said MacArthur.
The infrastructure beneath both lawns is decades old and inadequate to handle the storm sewer flow rates the area is subject to these days. MacArthur said the new system should be good for another century or so.
While the lawns may be messy at times until this time-consuming project is finished, MacArthur said the temporary headaches will be worth the wait.
“The long-term view is a small bit of pain right now for some nice gain in the end because it is going to be restored to a beautiful green space when it’s done,” she said.
The drill rig is expected to be in the area for the next couple of days.
gkean@thewesternstar.com
Twitter: WS_GaryKean
