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Bridge work will mean new access to Centennial Park

Tender will be awarded by December, with work expected to begin shortly after
ATH bridge PI
The tender for the new bridge over the Athabasca River on Highway 813 should be awarded in December, with work beginning soon after, but it will mean a new access road to get to Centennial Park, overlooking the town on the north side of the river.

ATHABASCA – Work on the new Athabasca Bridge should start early in the new year, but it will require a few changes to how residents get to one of the town’s most popular sites. 

After several years of delays on the project, pre-qualification of contractors was completed earlier this year and the final tender is expected to be sent out in October, said press secretary to the Minister of Transporation Rob Williams, who provided an update in a Sept. 10 e-mail.  

“Alberta Transportation expects to send out a tender package to four shortlisted contractors next month. Those contractors will have five weeks to submit their bids. A contract should be awarded by December 2021, with construction anticipated to get started shortly after,” he wrote, adding construction should take about two years. 

Currently, the rusty, 900-foot, wood-decked bridge across the Athabasca River on Highway 813 that was finished in 1952 and is generally standing the test of time, however, modern-day, heavy industrial traffic can make crossing the span a challenge, and a frightening one at that. Oftentimes, large splinters from the wood deck can be seen jutting upwards, and space is often at a premium. 

Some of the peripheral work that will be completed as part of the project also came to light during town council’s Sept. 7 meeting as councillors decided whether to approve a request from Bilsky Contracting to extract gravel from three acres of the town’s property near the site of the bridge prior to a new gravel access road that will be built from the Lion’s Campground, across from the Athabasca Golf and Country Club to where the current access to Centennial Park is located. 

“That service road is going to come all the way down in front of the transfer site, all the way to where the current access is to get to the Welcome sign,” said CAO Rachel Ramey, adding an additional access road for Inland Concrete will also be built. 

“They are creating an access route for Inland just to the north of the transfer site and around, and relocating Bilsky's scale, and Inland will get in that way … They’ll eliminate the access where you go into the transfer site and go left right away, that will be eliminated, but there'll be one straight service road that will take you to the access to the Welcome sign.” 

Williams also stated in his e-mail that “Alberta Transportation has specifically stated in the tender that the contractor will have to maintain access to Centennial Park at all times.” 

Bilsky Contracting plans to get in, get the gravel and get out of the site quickly. 

“They were not even sure about wanting to wait until this meeting, they wanted to get in there right way and get it done and then reclaiming right away, before Transportation comes to put the road in. So, this is going to be a quick process on that three acres,” Ramey said. 

“The extraction would be from the south end of our scale extending east of the Blue Heron Recycling Facility. It’s an area of approximately three acres of land and potentially 40,000 yards of product that could be extracted from that region netting a royalty of $150,000-$160,000 for the Town of Athabasca,” said the request to appear before council from Bruce Bilsky, owner of Bilsky Contracting.  

Coun. Dave Pacholok did express some concern about the town’s reclamation budget, but Ramey noted a lot of the land would be reclaimed with surplus material that will be extracted during the bridge project. 

Ultimately, council approved Bilsky’s request with the condition that reclamation of the site be completed before the end of 2021. 

 

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