FTLComm - Tisdale - July 21, 2000

Through out this week we have run a series of stories about the continuing work on Tisdale's streets and perhaps it is time to put this work into some perspective. You will recall that last summer Tisdale with some extra money from senior government repaved all of main street and did a lot of other paving projects throughout the community. It was thought that this summer we would get by with just a few little touch up projects to repair damage from routine water and sewer upgrades. What no one counted on was the onset of what could become "the wet years". The water table in and around Tisdale is very high and with weekly deposits of an average of half an inch the soil that underlies the community is absorbing this moisture. The clay base that rests under our homes and streets is a plastic material that can absorb substantial amounts of water but when it does so it changes shape and loses its integrity.

Minor cracks that might other wise be patched or ignored this year are water sumps that let the water down, heavy traffic can not be held up by this stuff and we have trouble. The town crew has been busily going from cracked area to cracked area attempting to cap the damage and not allow further deterioration but in general they concede that it is all they can do to keep the status quo. During the early fifties when Saskatchewan received water week after week, season after season the soil conditions which are not that dissimilar to Mississippi or Louisiana began to absorb the water. The only difference is that in the Southern United States there is no frost to contend with. Here in Saskatchewan large amounts of ground water in the fall will form solid bricks through winter and in the spring monster road damage results as the ice thaws and the roadways turn to swamp.

If ground water remains at the current level until freeze up we will see some pretty awful highways and streets in the spring and we will all want to blame the trucks but these conditions are the work of nature working along side heavy traffic.

We reported on Monday how Heritage Road was suffering from the loss of its top and on Thursday the town got right at the problem and regravelled the whole street then applied calcium to it and other gravelled streets to keep down the dust and bind the surface. Excellent work on the part of the town and its crew to keep things up and running and responding so quickly to the situation.