Flooded roads | RMs look for new compensation for damaged roads
Rural municipalities that saw traffic detoured on to grid roads due to flooded highways want a compensation framework in place to deal with similar situations in future.
Norma Sheldon, reeve of the RM of Prince Albert, said detours caused significant problems for the RM in the last few years. She told the Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities midterm convention that the highways ministry uses a draft compensation formula that doesn’t take enough factors into consideration.
She said the RM’s first experience was during the closure of the Diefenbaker Bridge through Prince Albert due to construction.
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“We have a couple of ferries in our RM and the ferry road became the access for large vehicles to cross the North Saskatchewan River for four months,” she said.
The road is about 5.5 kilometres long and Sheldon said the RM received $4,000 over four months to repair it.
“Our second and more traumatic of experiences came this spring with the Highway 2 south closure out of Prince Albert,” Sheldon said.
Highways detoured traffic on to grid roads even though the RM had declared a disaster and then a state of emergency.
“There was no consideration for the point at which we were in those roads,” she said.
The additional traffic meant more money then had to be spent on dust control.
One traffic count showed 584 cars passing by a rural residence in one day.
Sheldon said regional employees with the highways ministry told the RM that if money is spent to fix roads in one area it takes away from another. But she noted that the province is eligible for reimbursement from the federal disaster assistance program so that shouldn’t be an issue.
Compensation to RMs is the same “whether your highway is closed for 10 days or 10 weeks,” Sheldon added, and that’s a problem, too.
A resolution submitted by the RM of Prince Albert and passed by the delegates asked SARM to negotiate a policy framework with the highways ministry to address compensation for RM roads.
The motion said the framework should address: the condition of the RM in terms of declared disasters; a timeline to reset the compensation formula based on traffic counts; other costs such as gravel, dust control, signs and additional equipment; highway traffic staff to survey overweight vehicles; and, assistance to address seasonal road conditions.
The motion said 60 percent of the compensation should be paid to the RM within the first 15 days of the detour and the remainder paid within 10 days after the detour is ended.
The compensation rate should be reviewed and revised annually by SARM and highways.
Finally, the motion asked SARM to get assurances from the province that any compensation is not coming out of regional highways offices’ maintenance budgets.
Sheldon said the motion is about empowering SARM to negotiate so there are at least some guidelines in place.
