It looks more and more like the big dig on lower West Valley Road won’t be over when the street opens back up later this fall.
The City of Corner Brook has confirmed it is unlikely the combined sewer separation project will be completed as hoped this year.
Lower West Valley Road has been torn up since June as contractors carry out the multi-phased combined sewer separation project in the area.
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Darren Charters, the city’s director of community, engineering, development and planning, said it’s not looking good for the project to be finished by the time the road will have to be filled in and opened up for traffic flow.
How much work gets done is dictated by how late the fall weather permits asphalt plants to remain open so projects such as this one can be paved over before winter arrives.
“It’s hard to say how much will be left to do,” Charters said Tuesday. “Until we get closer to the end of the construction season, we won’t be able to tell for sure where we are with the project.”
Asphalt plants tend to cease operations in late October or early November, though a run of favorable weather could possibly extend that.
Charters said this is not unusual for major projects done in phases such as this one. He noted the delayed completion should not translate into significant cost overruns for the multimillion-dollar project, other than some additional administrative costs during the winter.
“It’s not ideal, but we don’t expect shutting down for the winter and picking it up again next year will be hard on the budget,” he said.
