Employees with the public works division with the City of Estevan have been busy with the traditional spring activities, and were recently part of the Operation Clean Sweep Clean-up Campaign.
Norm Mack, the manager of roads and drainage for public works, said the city had an early spring this year, allowing the city to get the street sweepers out.
“That enabled us to get crack filling sooner and patching,” said Mack. “Right now, we have all of our lane lines painted, yellows and whites.”
Crews recently finished painting in parking lots.
“The painting is continuous all summer,” said Mack. “We’ll be doing crosswalks and curbs. Also, we just completed dust control for the spring season.”
Due to the lack of precipitation in the Estevan area, the city needed to fast-track the dust control. Typically it would be completed at the end of May, but they decided to do it in early May instead.
“That settled the dust on the gravel roads throughout the city,” said Mack.
City employees were part of Operation Clean Sweep in mid-May. They could be seen picking up garbage at the city’s entrances and industrial areas on May 10, and then they cleaned up garbage from the greenspaces the following day.
Yard refuse was picked up from properties in north Estevan on May 12 and south Estevan the following day. A free landfill weekend was held from May 14-16 for Estevan residents.
Mack said they picked up “truckloads and truckloads and truckloads” of garbage.
Also on the public works’ task list are the asphalt patches in areas affected by water main repairs the past few months. Cement and paving contractors have been out.
“Any gravel patches that you see throughout the city will be paved in time, but we got a good jump on it, so quite a few have been completed already with repairing sidewalks and pavement that had been dug up for water and sewer breaks.”
Between 30 and 40 patches will be completed this year. It’s similar to a normal year, he said, despite the rash of water breaks that occurred during the extremely cold temperatures in mid-February.
The roads held up well during the winter months. There was below average snowfall this year, so the city didn’t have to spend much on snow removal. When it did, the streets were cleared using city staff and without requiring overtime.
“If you keep that moisture and snow off the streets, from melting down into the cracks, you save yourself a great deal of money in maintenance on streets. The pothole situation wasn’t terrible this year.”
The sidewalk renewal program will resume this year as well, and contractors are busy replacing crumbling sidewalks in the worst-off areas. Most of them are in southeast Estevan this year. The city has $125,000 for sidewalk renewal in its budget.
“It’s pieces and sections throughout the city that have crumbled. Some of these sidewalks are probably 70-80 years old,” he said.
When the reconstruction of Fourth Street from Kensington Avenue to Souris Avenue South occurs, the public works crews will be busy, especially with the water main replacement project in the 800 and 900 blocks of Fourth Street – hauling clay, backfilling and getting the street back in shape so it can be paved once again.
The city was so dry earlier this month, and moisture was needed to help with the appearance of greenspaces and people’s yards, and to reduce dust.
