City looks into regulating private snow dumps

At the urging of Ward 3 Councillor Matthew Shoemaker, city officials are looking into creating a new zoning classification for private snow dumps.

Councillor Shoe persuaded his fellow councillors yesterday to look at restrictions on where large piles of snow from private property may legally be dumped within the city limits.

Right now, he said, the city requires many property owners to haul away significant piles of snow.

This snow can pretty much be dumped in any rural part of the city, Shoemaker said, but there are no safeguards to ensure harmful substances aren't carried into rivers and lakes when the snow melts.

The City of Ottawa uses zoning restrictions to regulate location of private snow dumps.

"It's worth looking at, I think," Shoemaker said.

Ward 1 Councillor Steve Butland wanted to know whether the city could be expected to handle its own snow dumps differently than the manner it requires be used by private citizens.

City Hall facelift

Also last night, councillors awarded the job of replacing the civic centre's exterior windows and cladding to Cy Rheault Construction Ltd.

Rheault's low bid of $6,895,000 was $525,500 higher than the city had budgeted for the project.

Council agreed to add that amount to the contract, plus an extra $350,000 for unexpected project contingencies.

With HST added, total cost of the project will be $8,141,350.

To comply with the city's controversial collective agreement, Rheault must use carpenters who are members of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters  and Joiners Local 2486 and labourers from the Labourers International Union of North America Local 1036.

Work on the civic centre is expected to start this spring.

Fort Creek Aqueduct

Avery Construction will rebuild the century-old Fort Creek Aqueduct this year under Wellington Street West from John Street to Carmen's Way.

Avery's low bid of $8,161,833 was less than the pre-tender estimate of $9,993,926.

Intermittent closures of Wellington Street have been approved from Apr. 16 to Oct. 31.

The man-made subterranean passageway carries Fort Creek through Steelton on its way to the St. Marys River.

Black Road

Councillors expressed concern last night about the province's second refusal to fund the widening of Black Road between McNabb and Second Line.

The regional director of the Ministry of Transportation advised the city on Mar. 14 that pavements in Timmins and Espanola are in worse shape than Black Road and have been deemed higher priority, as has the bridge in Blind River.

The province provides up to 90 per cent (or $3 million, whichever is less) of the cost of capital works on roads within municipalities that are also provincial highways.

Sault Ste. Marie has more of these connecting links – 24.5 kilometres – than any of the 77 other eligible municipalities.

That's seven per cent of 352 kilometres of roadway across Ontario.

The province provides $30 million, meaning the city's share for connecting links would be $2.1 million a year.

The Black Road project has been put on hold.

Meanwhile, city staff will look at possibly applying next year to resurface Trunk Road instead of Black Road.

Forty per cent of this year's connecting link funding went to bridges, council was told by Don Elliott, the city's director of engineering services.