The work to repair Mamquam-Ring Creek Road has taken the District longer than expected to address.
In November 2021, an atmospheric river event caused significant damage, including major road cracking and a landslide on an adjacent private property.
Previously, the road was used by industrial and recreational vehicles; it was also a secondary emergency access road for the University Heights area.
Due to the damage, the road has been closed since 2021 to all users.
Jesse Morwood, capital projects manager at the District of Squamish, updated council on the road at a committee-of-the-whole meeting on June 25.
There has been significant work completed, including addressing the original road cracking. On the landowner side, the work to address the slide has been ongoing since 2022, Morwood said.
However, new cracks developed in the road over winter that have to be addressed, he added.
That will happen this summer.
Morwood said the District has received Light Detection and Ranging (Lidar) imaging of the area, and the municipality's geotechnical engineer is reviewing the data to determine what additional work needs to be done before the road is deemed safe.
The District is doing a slope stability risk assessment on other intact areas of the road that were not directly impacted by the flooding from the atmospheric river, Morwood said, and assessing any potential risk of any re-opening of the road to any traffic.
According to the staff report, the three-year project to date has cost $454,089. Of that, approximately $172,000 came back in funding from the provincial government's Disaster Financial Assistance Recovery Plan.
It is expected to cost $25,000 to repair the additional road cracking, which will be funded through the Annual Roads and Bridges subproject, the report states.
Morwood said a final report would be complete this summer and there would be a more fulsome report to council on the situation in the fall.
The intent is to eventually re-open the road to industrial and recreational users.
Those interested can read the full report on the District’s website.
