Advocates want Avon River Causeway fixed before Highway 101 twinning

HANTSPORT, N.S. – It’s one of the busiest highways in the province, and the Nova Scotia government is currently looking at how feasible it is to twin a 9.5-kilometer section of Highway 101.

“It’s kind of the missing link on the 101 down through the Valley,” said Brian Ward, Director of Highway Engineering with the province.

READ MORE: Banner calls attention to dangerous section of Nova Scotia highway

The area in question runs from Three Mile Plains to Falmouth, and goes from being twinned to a single-lane highway, then back to twinned.

The highway has seen a number of accidents in recent years, many of which have claimed lives. Because of this, Highway 101 has been at the centre of many debates on twinning.

“The public has called out and asked for the government to expand this highway,” said Ward.

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“The trucking industry, it’s huge to them. It’s huge to the economy through the Valley and Digby area, we can move goods and services through the area faster if we had a four lane cross section.”

READ MORE: Woman dies in fatal accident on Highway 101 near Windsor, N.S.

Twinning a troublesome change for wildlife

Twinning the road would mean changes to the Avon River Causeway, something advocates say was never properly constructed in the first place.

“The Avon River Causeway is a disaster. It has wreaked havoc on the complete watershed here,” said Sonja Wood, with the group Friends the Avon River.

She says the causeway was constructed without a proper fish passageway meaning it impedes the migration of a number of fish including Atlantic Salmon, which were once plentiful in the area.

“At this point, we have zero fish passage at the Avon River Causeway. That is the problem,” said Wood.

“When you put a plug in this type of a watershed area, it destroys the complete habitat and it threatens all the species that need to thrive within this area”

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READ MORE: Safety review of 3 Nova Scotia highways to be released

Talk of twinning the highway has prompted the group to start an online petition asking for government to do a comprehensive environmental study of the Avon River Watershed.

“This is our trigger. When they start to work on the causeway area this is where we have to step in and say ‘now is the time to get this comprehensive assessment done,'” Wood told Global News.

The province says they’ll conduct an environmental assessment on the area, but Wood wants the entire causeway system re-designed to allow for proper fish migration.

“Now is the time for us to do this right, so we’re not coming back again in the future to say ‘we have to revisit this problem.'”