By Brent Bosker

Province stepping up Hwy 2 pumping

Jun 27, 2013 | 12:30 PM

A flooded section of Highway 2 between Prince Albert and St. Louis that is currently closed could be open again sooner than expected.

The Ministry of Highways is stepping up efforts to get traffic back on the washed out highway, which they say could happen as early as next week.

“If the contractor, that’s pumping can make good progress and the weather hold out on us we hopefully could have the highway open in a week,” said spokesman Doug Wakabayashi.

Pumping water off the highway has been ongoing since the start of June. To accelerate the process and prevent any further setbacks, Wakabayashi said they are building two temporary dams and an earth berm.

“And what those structures are going to do is isolate the area where the highway is and prevent more water from coming into that depression.”

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Wakabayashi said crews have made good progress pumping and if not for the continued wet weather, the highway may have been re-opened already.

While the rain has set them back, he explained the biggest challenge has been draining the estimated 52 million gallons of water that collected from the spring melt.

“People familiar with [the area] will know there is a lot elevation changes —a lot of depressions, a lot of sloughs and kettles and things of that nature. What happened with the spring runoff this year those all filled up and water levels got to such a height they actually started to flow together, essentially forming a lake,” said Wakabayashi.

The water first appeared on the highway May 2. It was closed three days later and since then traffic has been detoured onto municipal roads.

The pumping to date, plus the flood mitigation measures announced Thursday will cost about $250,000, the province said.

bbosker@panow.com

On Twitter: @brentbosker