Watch above: Residents and councillors squared off over the sloping riverbank on 11th Street in Saskatoon Monday. Wendy Winiewski finds out whether or not the issues have been resolved and whether taxpayers will be on the hook for the fix.
SASKATOON – What to do about the riverbank slump on 11th Street. That was a topic of discussion Monday during a tense meeting of Saskatoon’s executive committee.
City administration suggested eight different options to deal with the sliding riverbank. The options range from a $20-million solution – relocating homes and remediating the slope – to purchasing the affected properties and demolishing them.
The option the executive committee ultimately decided to take was to not take any physical action but continue to monitor the movement.
It’s a decision that doesn’t sit well with affected homeowners.
“Where do we go from here?” asked Robert Tokaryk. “I don’t know. I think we’ve maybe been remiss as a group not to seek legal opinion from the owner’s point of view.
“That may be the next step if things to seem to settle down.”
The slope failure was first notice in 2012. Since then, it has moved nearly three metres according to a report by Golder and Associates.
That same report says the instability can mostly be blamed on a high ground water table.
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“The very steep nature of the slope, the types of soil we have underneath and the ground water conditions, that’s ultimately what caused it to slide and that’s ultimately what’s making it unstable,” said Galen Heinrichs, the city’s water and sewer engineering manager.
“Any solution we have will need to address those. Even if we addressed the storm water and didn’t address any of those other things, we’d still have exactly the same problem.”
READ MORE: Councillors review Saskatoon slope failure report
Residents feel the city is partially to blame.
“When we have Cherry Lane putting pressure on our property and their storm water coming on our property and the two biggest points of failure … exactly where the city’s storm water is coming onto those two points,” said Kent Rathwell.
City council has the final say on which option to take, which is expected to remain unchanged given the unanimous decision of the executive council.
Wendy Winiewski contributed to this report
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