Roadwork starting back up
Work will continue on Old Chateauguay Road starting in May as part of the restoration of the road that began last year. File photo
The continuation of the work to replace the water and sewer systems along the Old Chateauguay Road (OCR) will be ramping back up in the coming weeks.
Starting May 4, work will be done on the 240-metre stretch of the OCR that sits between the two intersections with Mohawk Street.
Added to that will be work done on some of the sewage and water system around the OCR, namely on Kirby Hill Road from the cross to the first connecting street with the OCR, and on Delisle Road from the OCR to the connection with Kirby Hill Road.
Dubbed “OCR Phase II,” this work is planned to go on full time until the fall.
Brendan Montour, the director of the Mohawk Council of Kahnawake’s Capital Unit, said that the total sum of the work includes some of what was supposed to be completed last year, but could not be done in time for the end of construction season.
“We thought that last year we would be able to do this amount of length, which would have been the whole distance from the cross,” said Montour, referring to the portion of the OCR that was under repair last year. However, only about two thirds of the work was finished, Montour estimates, so the last third is being added to the rest of what is being done in the surrounding area.
The work done on Kirby Hill Road and Delisle Road is to improve the drainage of the new system, Montour said, being downhill.
“That’s low enough that when we connect the drainage from the street, it has an exit, because right now it’s too high, where the drainage is,” said Montour.
“It doesn’t make any sense to just have a certain part on the street and then just leave it there. It would be a dead end; it wouldn’t help us.”
Detours will be set up as the work will necessitate total closure of the affected areas. The details of those detours have not yet been made public, including whether or not the same detour that was used last year, near the Kahnawake Sports Complex, will be used again.
Last year, the work on the OCR coincided with the work near the boundary with Chateauguay that caused traffic - and tensions - to rise within the community. Especially affected were the small streets and backroads of Kahnawake that often served as unofficial detours for the work as motorists attempted to navigate the construction.
This included a rise in tensions when an influx of vehicles heading to a butcher shop offering halal meat on the OCR during Eid al-Adha in June of last year.
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The $4.16 million project is funded by money coming from Indigenous Services Canada. Many of the pipes in the area are due for a replacement, being almost half a century old. The changes to the system will also make it possible to expand the water and sewage past Diabo Road on the OCR, if the MCK decides to do so as the community continues to expand.
