This week has seen some of the coldest days of the year in Prince Rupert, but Dante Massari of Adventure Construction is not complaining
This week his company started work on phase 2 of the Hays Creek Sewer Project – installing a main lift station and new piping near 9th and McBride Street.
“It’s the first project we’ve had in Prince Rupert in four years,” Massari said at the work site Thursday. The last big local project the Prince Rupert based company had was in Cow Bay with the underground work around Atlin Terminal. Most recently the company has been working in the Nass Valley, he said.
On Thursday morning an excavator was getting started. Frozen snow and ice covered the ground because the temperature has hovered well below 0 since Monday. Earlier that day the weatherman said it was -9 with a wind chill of -14. That’s cool for Prince Rupert.
Looking toward the large fenced area that closes off the 9th Street entrance to the Civic Centre parking lot, Massari explained the crew will dig a hole about 25 x 45 metres and four to five metres deep.
“About three thousand cubic metres of material will be going out and it will be replaced by new rock and crush. There’ll be a new building with a generator backup unit in it to run the pumps going into the lifting station,” he said.
The building will be about 8 x 5 metres and one storey, made with blocks, while the lifting station will be buried underground.
From there the crew will have to work up and across McBride Street to install sewer pipes that will head toward a second smaller lift station planned to go in near the Skate Park, phase 3 of the project.
“When we do the highway crossing we won’t stop, we’re going to be working right through. That’s when we’ve got fibre optics, gas lines and water mains. That’s going to be a big open cut – five metres on top, and three or four metres deep,” Massari said. “Nothing we haven’t done before,” he added with a shrug.
And while McBride Street, which is actually the main highway into town, won’t be closed completely when they do the work across McBride Street, there will be one-lane traffic during that time.
Massari estimates the $1.9 million dollar project will take about four months to complete and will employ around 20 people.
“Hopefully the locals don’t mind the noise for three or four months. I think they’ve all been notified,” he said.