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By Ben Tompkins

Rural Integrated Roads for Growth Program

Two northeast RMs getting provincial help with upcoming culvert upgrades

Oct 4, 2023 | 5:00 PM

A couple of local Rural Municipalities (RM) are getting some financial aid from the Government of Saskatchewan in order to fund bridge upgrades.

The RMs of Pleasantdale and Torch River are planning to rebuild their bridges by turning them into culverts.

The two are a part of 11 rural communities that are receiving nearly $4.9 million in provincial grants from the Rural Integrated Roads for Growth (RIRG) program to rebuild 14 bridges and large culverts.

Pleasantdale and Torch River will be getting about $400,000 combined.

“I don’t think that the project would be a goal without the funding, I don’t think the RMs would be in a place to authorize that kind of work,” said the RM of Pleasantdale. “We’re very grateful to the provincial government for the funding.”

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For the RM of Plesantdale, they are receiving exactly half of what their project is going to cost.

The Wensley Bridge project is expected to cost $702,000, therefore they are getting $351,000 in grant money.

As of right now, the plan is to replace their current bridge with a large culvert, as that is the better financial option in the long term.

“Council has indicated that they would like to replace the bridge with some large culverts and they feel that there’ll be less of a strain maintenance-wise on the RM, without interfering with the flow of the water in that area,” the Pleasantdale administration added.

“When we’ve looked at the cost of projects other RMS have done, maintaining a bridge itself is more costly than putting in the culverts and the culverts seem to give better longevity than a bridge.”

The project has yet to begin, as pre-planning and budgeting is the next step, with full approval still needed.

The anticipation would be that 2025 is the year of the actual construction work.

The road where the construction is being done is described as one that’s mostly used by locals.

As for Torch River, they are also getting half of their anticipated project costs covered as $46,500 will be doled out for their $93,000 replacement.

Their project is described as a replacement of a box culvert.

When combined with municipal dollars, the total estimated value of all 14 projects is more than $12.3 million.

“We prioritized investments in rural bridges and roads to keep our economy going during the pandemic,” Highways Minister Lori Carr said. “Four years ago, Saskatchewan pledged to rebuild 100 bridges over four years. With the announcement of this latest round of projects, we will have rebuilt or replaced 105 rural bridges.”

RIRG assists rural municipalities to build and upgrade local infrastructure. The program provides grants up to 50 per cent of each project’s total cost, to a maximum of $500,000.

The Government of Saskatchewan is improving 1,000 km of provincial highways this year. This keeps the province on track to meet the Growth Plan goal to build and upgrade 10,000 km of highways over 10 years.

Since 2008, the Government of Saskatchewan has invested more than $12 billion in highways, improving more than 19,400 km of Saskatchewan roads.

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