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Sinkhole no more; Dundas and Wellington re-open
Peter McNally, director of Water Environment and Customer Relations with the City of London, said the intersection will be re-opened in time for morning rush-hour traffic. The Dundas Street and Wellington Road intersection has been out of commission since a 12-inch watermain burst Oct. 31, causing the road to open up a 15 ft deep sinkhole, measuring in excess of 20 ft in diameter. "Regular automobile and London Transit bus service will resume in both directions," McNally said. "Wellington Street travel will remain reduced to one lane in each direction including left turn lanes, as work continues on the municipal-chilled water line for another two weeks." In addition to the yawning crevice created back at the end of October, the break in the watermain caused extensive damage to a utilities vault, causing power in the core to be shut off, affecting buildings from Wellington to Rideout Streets and York to Dufferin Avenue. Peter Steblin, general manager of Environmental and Engineering Services for the City of London, said the city experiences approximately 150 watermain breaks annually. "The only difference with this one is that it occurred in a congested, underground corridor with many different utilities in close proximity," including London Hydro lines and vaults. Aging infrastructure was cited as the cause of the break, prompting London's Mayor, Anne Marie DeCicco-Best, to call on federal and provincial governments for funding to address the problem she said was a national issue affecting all major centres. Armed with a scathing report regarding infrastructure costs in Canadian municipalities, DeCicco-Best suggested the federal government should tap into the federal surplus to address the problem. She said that cities in Canada have been asking for the equivalent of one-cent of the GST as a starting point of revenues that grow with the economy. If the governments were able to devote about $5 billion a year to deal with infrastructure issues across Canada, for London that would mean about $30 million a year. Though the $30 million wouldn't solve all of London's infrastructure problems, it would go a long way to help the city start the rebuilding process and could help avoid another sinkhole situation like the one in the core. "With a federal surplus of $26 billion over the next six years, now is the time for all levels of government to work together to help put infrastructure funding on a sound sustainable basis for the future," said DeCicco-Best. "The recent watermain break in London is just one sign of a nation-wide problem," she said, adding the city is committed to 20-year plans to address aging sewer and water infrastructure, and also need to focus on road maintenance. "We're calling on both the federal and provincial governments to immediately lead a long-term effort to eliminate the municipal infrastructure deficit," said Mayor DeCicco-Best. Much of the city's infrastructure was put in place over a 150-year period, Steblin said, adding it must be addressed in a systematic fashion and can not be replaced all at one time. "In the interim, we will get watermain breaks and on rare occasions significant damage like what occurred here will result," Steblin said. The 12-inch watermain that broke beneath the Dundas-Wellington intersection is believed to date back to the 1930s or 1940s, and much of the 1,400 kms of water main beneath the city is as old if not older, he said. |
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