Qualicum Beach - Beach Creek Culvert Replacement at Crescent Road East

completed

The project is to replace two failing corrugated steel culverts under a deep road embankment crossing a fish bearing creek. The road fill and culverts provide temporary storage and attenuation of the flows in Beach Creek during major precipitation events, that are anticipated to increase in severity with climate change. The existing culverts do not have the hydraulic capacity for more extreme future events and the failure, blockage or exceedance of capacity would result in the creation of a reservoir behind the embankment beyond the capability of the embankment to resist without failure. The embankment was constructed more than 70 years ago principally of sand and has been judged by current geotechnical assessment to have poor seismic resistance especially in a saturated state. The failure of the embankment under such conditions would inundate a downstream area comprised of residential and commercial buildings as well as a major intersection of two numbered highways. The project components are: - approx. 37.5 m of fish passable concrete box culvert - approx. 180 m2 of mechanically stabilized earth wall - approx. 8,000 m3 of structural embankment - a fish passable flow control structure - inlet and outlet headwalls - rip-rap armoring - fish spawning gravel placement - approx. 113 m of watermain replacement, and - approx. 610 m2 of road reconstruction including roadside handrails, barrier curbs, painted lines, and bicycle lane flexible delineators.