The restoration of Penticton Creek won’t be going ahead this year.
Coun. Helena Konanz said the Creek Restoration Committee decided to delay to project to 2018 because of challenges and issues that still needed to be resolved.
“The committee was working really hard to get everything resolved,” said Konanz.
Related: Restoring Penticton Creek moves to next stage
In order to accommodate fish living and spawning in the creek, all work on it has to be done over the course of a few weeks. Mitch Moroziuk, director of operations for the City of Penticton, said plans weren’t going to be ready in time to meet the fish window.
“We were struggling with a couple of different things,” said Moroziuk. The provincial application to work in the creek now requires letters of support from all adjacent landowners; Moroziuk said they are still working on one.
That is one hurdle, Moroziuk said. Another is a provincial requirement about the height above the waterline adjacent to one of the streets where the work was taking place.
“There was a difference of opinion in terms of what the ministry was asking for and what our consultants felt was necessary. They took time to work through that,” said Moroziuk.
With those issues and the narrow window for working, Moroziuk said they wouldn’t be able to give contractors enough time to prepare a good bid.
“We wouldn’t be fair to the contractor and we would probably not get good pricing back on a project like this one,” said Moroziuk, noting that the fish window starts in July, making the work window even smaller if you added in a two to three week tender period and time for the successful bidder to mobilize.
“We would actually be eating into the fish window when we hadn’t even awarded the contract yet,” said Moroziuk.
Related: Penticton Creek restoration project celebrates first anniversary
