A heavy winter, a sweeper at the end of its life cycle and a contractor going into bankruptcy have all resulted in delaying Canmore’s spring street sweeping this year.
Deputy chief administrative officer Lisa de Soto called it a “perfect storm” of reasons why the community’s streets are not yet swept.
She said this winter the streets and roads department put down twice the material, approximately 3,000 metric tonnes of sand and gravel, due to heavy snowfalls. Historically, the average for Canmore is around 1,500 metric tonnes.
In addition to twice the amount of material to be cleaned off Canmore’s roadways, the Town’s single street sweeper unit is also at the end of its lifecycle.
In December, council voted to postpone purchasing a new unit for $250,000 and explore the possibility of contracting out the service.
The increased amounts of sand and gravel on the streets and a 12-year-old sweeper, de Soto said, resulted in that sweeper having a major breakdown.
She added, however, the Town annually contracts sweeping services in the spring to clean the roads.
This year the company Canmore hired went into bankruptcy and not only was it unable to get the job done, all the other companies in the province that do the same work were already contracted out.
“We have one here now and we are out blitzing the roads,” de Soto said. “We are about a month behind because of those reasons.”
She said residents should be aware due to the amount of material that needs to be swept the machines will begin by quickly sweeping all neighbourhoods and then returning for a second sweep with signage, parking restrictions and removal of debris up to the curbs.
Three Sisters Parkway, a provincial highway, is contracted to Volker Stevin for sweeping.
The material that is collected will be used as clean fill at the Francis Cooke Landfill.
Streets and roads supervisor Don Staple said to recycle the material it would have to be cleaned and washed to remove debris and remixed with new material before being stockpiled.
That kind of recycling program would require infrastructure and space that currently does not exist.
