Esquimalt鈥檚 roads weren鈥檛 designed to take a steady pounding from heavy trucks. The township should be compensated for the damage that will result as dozens of loads of contaminated soil are hauled daily over roads not designed for traffic that heavy.
By the end of March, more than 150,000 cubic metres of contaminated sediment, enough to fill 60 Olympic-size swimming pools, will be dredged from the Esquimalt Graving Dock and trucked to the Highwest Landfill site on Millstream Road in the Highlands. That means 75 or more tandem trucks travelling Craigflower, Admirals, Colville and Tillicum roads each day.
鈥淭his is what I would call extraordinary traffic,鈥� said Esquimalt director of engineering Jeff Miller. 鈥淚t鈥檚 something the road was never expecting to see.鈥�
Esquimalt has passed a bylaw allowing it to be compensated for the strain of extraordinary traffic, which it defines as 鈥渟ix vehicles or more with a total gross vehicle weight in excess of 10,000 kilograms over a 24-hour period, coming and going from the same area.鈥�
Though Tervita, the company with the contract to haul the sediment, has been caught off guard by the new bylaw, it has said it is willing to work with the township. But a company spokesman also worries that Tervita will be required to bear the whole cost when other companies鈥� trucks are using the same roads.
Care must be taken to be fair and equitable, but there鈥檚 no reason Esquimalt should have to bear the costs alone.
