Let the dredging begin

After months of wrangling with government agencies, dredging of Meaghan Creek has finally begun.

Mayor Chris Peiper said work is supposed to be complete by the end of March, but he suspects the work will be complete before then.

Homes along Meaghan Creek were flooded the last two years, with 2017 being the heaviest flooding.

Peiper and city officials started looking for permission to dredge the creek immediately after the 2017 flood, but were drowning in red tape before they managed to get approval.

The work will have to follow environmental guidelines.

“They (work crews) will have to come back in the summertime and redo a culvert because of the environmental concerns with the fish and what not,” said Peiper.

Peiper said the dredging work will go from the Askews mall to Paterson Avenue.

“Which is basically all the way through town,” Peiper said. “It's over a kilometre long. We are doing our due diligence. We only want the water to pass through town we can't control it coming in and we can't control it going out. We just don't want it to stop on Armstrong.”