Richard Froese
South Peace News

Big Lakes County council wants the Peavine access road to get a new layer of asphalt as previously promised.

At its regular meeting April 27, council approved a recommendation to file a request to Alberta Transportation to fund an overlay of the road under a joint funding agreement.

“They made a commitment to it,” Reeve Ken Matthews says.

“It’s a good time to do this.”

Matthews was referring to plans for a new overlay of Highway 2 between Triangle and Kinuso, confirmed in February by Infrastructure and Transportation Minister Brian Mason in a letter to council.

Funding for the Peavine road was approved to pave and upgrade the road from 1997 to 2003 under a joint agreement with the county, Peavine Metis Settlement and Alberta Transportation, states a report from CAO Bill Kostiw.

“The funding agreement indicated that the department will provide funding for a future rehabilitation project when required and determined by the same pavement evaluation criteria used for the secondary highway program,” the report says.

“In 2008, we had EXH Engineering perform a pavement assessment as the pavement was staring to fail.

This assessment recommended an asphalt overlay, however, regional ministry staff did not respond.

Further requests for funding in 2010 and 2011 were also denied to the chagrin of council.

Administration suggests that council forward a new request for allocation of money for the asphalt overlay as per the funding agreement. Peavine Metis Settlement be invited to do the same.