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City to spend $60,000 to address Coker Road area

By Ryan Forbes Jan 4, 2023 | 5:00 AM


Photo courtesy of Upriver Media Inc. Image shows Coker Road flooding during the 2022 May Long Weekend.

The City of Kenora is prepared to spend another $60,000 or so to find out how to best repair Coker Road and help prevent any future flooding north of the Kenora bypass.

During December 20’s Council Meeting at City Hall, Mayor Andrew Poirier and fellow councillors passed and approved a recommendation to spend $55,600 and HST in the 2023 Municipal Capital Budget for geotechnical engineering work on Coker Road.

A portion of Coker Road, east of Kelly Road, has been closed to all traffic since early November after safety concerns were found by city staff, but thankfully, no properties are being impacted by the closure.

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As it stands, Stantec engineers are scheduled to drill the area, analyze the roadway and provide solutions to address the settling of Coker Road to council in mid to late January, with the repair work taking place later on.

Stantec is the same engineering firm the city contracted to rebuild parts of Pinecone Drive earlier this year. The Winnipeg-based company says they’ve completed over 100 roadway remediation projects across North America without a single failure. That work cost the city about $750,000.

The city was forced to shut down the same portion of Coker Road in May after the historic rainfall and flooding seen across northwestern Ontario in 2022, with the roadway being totally flooded out by the end of the month.

At its worst, flooding on Coker was reported to be over 20” over an estimated 350 metres.

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Council voted to approve about $185,000 in repair work for Coker Road in June to raise the roadway and help prevent flooding in the future. Those funds were taken out of the JM Roads Reserve Fund.