Stellarton - Whether or not the province will pick up the tab for a $1 million sinkhole in Stellarton still remains to be seen.
In early November, a sinkhole formed on North Foord Street, near the base of the on-ramp at Exit 24. Initially, town engineer Tony Addis believed the sinkhole was caused by a mineshaft collapsing underground.
But as the days and weeks wore on, and flooding appeared a few metres away near the off-ramp, it was determined the issue was really a cracked concrete box culvert.
Addis says the culvert was installed by the province in 1963 when the highway was built to address water drainage off the highway. It was joined to an existing storm water sewer system that dated back to about 1914.
Known as "the tunnels," the system of culverts measuring 1.5 metres in height and width is responsible for carting away storm water for one-third of the town and flushing it into the East River.
"This is a busy and important drain tunnel," says Addis.
But at some point, a crack formed in the top of the box culvert, at the point where it joins onto the tunnel system. Just 15 centimetres wide, the crack was still big enough to allow dirt to dribble into the tunnel system. And as water came into the culverts, it washed it further into the tunnels.
"The ground must have settled over time - and we don't know how much time or when it cracked," Addis said. "But all this was happening 60 feet below the ground, underneath the lights by the Sobey's office. When we did know there was something going on, we had this hole and a main sewer line had broken. All of that flowed through the void, into the cracked tunnel."
Eventually, the tunnel system became completely blocked, with very little of the water capable of getting through the culverts.
"The tunnels are almost completely plugged, or three-quarters plugged," Addis said.
The real issue wasn't discovered until the flooding happened, however. Thinking it was a collapsed mine shaft, firefighters had trained their hoses into the hole, wanting to see how far the ground would sink before it settled.
There was nowhere for that water to go, however, so it poured back out to the culvert entrance by the Exit 24 off-ramp.
The town began pumping the water out of the tunnels and culvert so workers could enter the system. Donning mining gear and testing gas levels at every step, they went into the pitch black tunnel and finally discovered the source of the problem.
Once the town knew what it was dealing with, they started fixing the problem and repairing the roadway. Then it sent a bill for the $300,000 in work done so far to the province.
That bill is still mounting - because the blockage is still in place, the town has to keep two pumps running constantly to keep the issue from reoccurring, at a cost of more than $20,000 a month.
But the Department of Transportation still hasn't said it will cover the costs. Patricia Jreige, communications advisor, said Friday that while the department is in talks with the town, Foord Street is "a town road, owned by the Town of Stellarton and not by the province. We are working through the town to determine the nature and the extent of the problem, and also determining the ownership and origin of the drainage system that failed."
The department is looking at possible funds the town can access to help it fix the problem, she added.
Fixing the issue is going to be costly. Council directed Addis to source out people to do the work, and it's estimated that the work will be in the ballpark of $700,000 - bringing the total costs of the sinkhole to $1 million.
That sort of money isn't in the engineering budget for Stellarton, so no further action will be taken until it's figured out who will be picking up the tab.
According to Pictou Centre MLA Ross Landry, who has been working with the town to straighten out the payment issues, the province's engineering team is trying to figure out who has what responsibility.
"The province is in discussion about the issues with them (Stellarton council)," Landry said Friday. "Full liability hasn't been settled yet. They're communicating, and that's the key thing I guess."
Landry says he'll do whatever he can to help the process along, adding he's hoping the two sides will meet within the next month.
There's no word yet on what the town will do if the province says it won't cover the costs.
"We're not even going to go there right now," Mayor Joe Gennoe said this week.
"I'm sure they're going to cover it. We're working on it."
Gennoe says he's fielded a lot of questions from residents about the sinkhole, but right now, has nothing more he can tell people.
"We feel very strongly, and we've been told verbally, that they're going to do it, but we haven't had anything in writing," he said. "The sooner it's done the better, because maintaining the status quo is expensive."
The Fix
Stellarton (The News) - Repairing the tunnel system will be a costly -and lengthy - process, says Stellarton's town engineer.
The first step is cleaning out the plugged tunnel system, which is more than 180 metres long, says Tony Addis.
It's something that may be done remotely, but it's more likely going to require workers going down in the tunnels and digging out the dirt that has almost completely filled the drainage system, a process which will likely take three months or so to complete.
"Hopefully, we'd be able to go even faster," Addis said.
That's the easy part. Then comes repairing the broken section of box culvert, and any other damages done to the tunnel system because of the clogging.
"We don't know what kind of shape it's in because it's completely blocked," Addis explained.
That work will have to be done from the inside of the tunnel as well. It's not known yet how long that process would take, but it will be at least a few weeks.
"It would be too deep a hole and too active a spot to dig … from above," he said.
Then comes the final step - stabilizing the ground where the sinkhole formed, so no more settlement will occur - which will likely take a month at least.
Addis says the town could be ready to mobilize the clean-up within a few days, once they figure out who will be footing the estimated $700,000 repair bill.
