The City of Saskatoon continues to deal with the issue of sinkholes throughout the city.
First, a sinkhole opened on 23rd Street in early April. Later, one swallowed a car near Preston Avenue and Adelaide Street.
On Wednesday night, Saskatoon got its third sinkhole in 10 days, this time on Broadway Avenue near 8th Street East.
“We do get a few on occasion each year so I would say a little more concentrated as far as how many we’ve had in the last little while, but not uncommon to have a few,” said Brenden Lemke, City of Saskatoon director of water and waste operations.
Lemke says there’s a chance it’s related to the way the frost is leaving the ground.
“Depending on where you are and what roadway and how deep the frost went, it can kind of act like a cap over top of the water main breaks so breaks don’t tend to surface the way they normally would and then it’s water on the surface as opposed to washing away the soil underneath the ground,” Lemke said.
Sinkholes can happen under a brand new road and both new and old pipes can break so Lemke says there’s no real way to predict where they will occur.
“We do a lot of our own regular inspections that are looking for issues,” Lemke said.
Despite the city’s best efforts, it is frustrating people.
“Not good,” Ken Watts said. “People’s cars are getting wrecked.”
“The one up at Market Mall, I had just gone in that way about 15 minutes before it happened. So yes, pretty scary,” Stella Patterson added.
Lemke says if you come across a big puddle that’s not next to a snowdrift, it’s best to not drive through it and call the City of Saskatoon’s customer support line.
“We will dispatch people that will go take a look,” Lemke said. “We can turn the water off and start to look for issues or problems under the surface.”
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