By Sarah Stone

Engineers process data from underwater pier inspections

Nov 14, 2013 | 5:29 AM

Recent markings on the piers of the Diefenbaker Bridge show where underwater inspections have taken place.

Scott Golding, manager of capital planning and strategic services with the public works department, said ISL Engineering and Land Services began inspections at the end of October.

“They had started doing some fieldwork here in the last week of October, so they had the sonar scan team out there with the boats,” Golding said.

“The field collection is finished. The engineers still have to process and review all the images and the data that were collected, so there’s some office time there. We have been in touch with the consultants and they’re working readily on that.”

Golding said he doesn’t have any hard deadlines as to when the report will be complete, but expects it by the end of the year if they don’t have to send divers in for a closer look.

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“One thing they have to do determine [is] the proposal did include the possibility of verification dive for calibration purposes or to check if there was anything within the image quality that kind of needed to be checked on manually,” he said.

As of right now, he said they aren’t aware if they need to do this yet.

“The weather turned really cold and stormy on us very quickly, so they didn’t have a chance to deploy the dive team because that was kind of going to be done after the data had been looked at here. So, if that step is necessary we’re probably going to be looking at late spring next year in 2014 if a verification needs to be done,” he explained.

No official comment can be made about the findings, but upon initial inspection Golding said there is nothing that raised immediate concern to undermine the bridge.

“They’re moving on to more secondary functions looking at things like was there any collision damage either with debris in the water or some other factor or if there is any environmental deterioration … they’ll be looking for things like cracks and swelling of the concrete,” he said.

In 2010, the City of Prince Albert had consultants brought in which recommended an underwater pier inspection be undertaken within three years.

The city applied for funding for the inspections under the provincial Urban Highway Connector Program for the 2013-14 fiscal year and the ministry of highways and infrastructure confirmed it committed the $65,887 to fund the inspections.

“With the flooding this year we thought it would be really prudent to get that looked at sooner rather than later because a few years had already elapsed since that recommendation had been giving to us.”

sstone@panow.com

On Twitter: @sarahstone84