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Evacuation route out of Harrison inches forward

The District of Kent approved a nearly $19,000 proposal to look at three routes out of the village
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Kent and Harrison are working with the province to establish an emergency egress through Sasquatch provincial park. (Google Maps)

An evacuation route from Harrison Hot Springs is slowly inching forward, as Kent council approved an $18,748 proposal to look at three possible routes out of the village and the surrounding area.

In May of this year, the District of Kent put out a request for proposals that would see a contractor identify and analyze three possible routes out of the district for people in the Rockwell Drive and Sasquatch Provincial Park areas.

Only one contractor submitted their proposal by the end of May, and it was significantly above budget: $58,300 rather than $19,000.

RELATED: Kent looking to finally build emergency route out of Harrison

In late June, council decided to extend the RFP to give contractors more time to submit their proposals. At Monday’s council meeting (Aug. 19), emergency program coordinator Mike Van Laerhoven brought forward three new proposals that had been submitted for the evacuation route.

Of the three, only one was within the grant budget of $19,715: Onsite Engineering’s $18,748 proposal, including GST. This was also the only one that fit the District of Kent’s work criteria.

“It was a very well done proposal, I’m happy to see the amount of detail and thought that was put into it,” Van Laerhoven said. “They’ve done various projects with the district and similar projects with the evacuation route planning in other areas.”

Council voted to award the project to Onsite Engineering, using grant funding from UBCM’s Community Emergency Preparedness Fund.

Onsite Engineering will undertake a report to look at three possible routes out of Harrison Hot Springs, Rockwell Drive and Sasquatch Provincial Park. All project activities must be completed by Feb. 28, 2020 and Onsite Engineering will provide a report back to council around that time.



grace.kennedy@ahobserver.com

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