By James Peters

Province says more stabilization work slated for Yellowhead near Barriere, site of Thursday slide

Apr 5, 2019 | 4:20 PM

BARRIERE, B.C. — The B.C. Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure says the area where a rock slide came down Thursday, blocking both lanes of the Yellowhead Highway south of Barriere, was already on the radar for stability issues.

The slide came down early Thursday afternoon, blocking the highway until about 7:00 p.m. when the material was fully cleared.

“About 75-to-100 cubic metres (came down); that would be about eight to 10 dump trucks,” said Operations Manager Graeme Schimpf. “Fortunately, there were no injuries or vehicle damage in the event yesterday.”

The ministry has been working on this section of highway for more than a decade, and Schimpf says there is more work to be done to secure the slope.

“The Ministry does have a provincial rock slope program, funded at about $3.5 million annually. Since 2007, Fishtrap Bluff along Highway 5 — the section where this rock slide occurred — has had about $1.6 million spent,” said Schimpf.

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“Looking in the short term here, we will be doing some smaller repairs in relation to the recent rock fall that happened. We do have another phase of the larger rock fall mitigation planned for Fishtrap, valued at about $900,000. Scheduling is to be determined on that.”

In the meantime, while it’s difficult to predict future slides, Schimpf says the ministry is as confident as possible that no more slides will take place in the short term.

“We had our geotechnical engineers out yesterday. They cleared the area. We constantly monitor these type of slopes, so we’ll continue that, but we got the all-clear yesterday,” said Schimpf.

by James Peters

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Province says more stabilization work slated for Yellowhead near Barriere, site of Thursday slide

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