Manitoba Floodway starts in pre-design

Consulting engineers set to start pre-design on the Manitoba Floodway Expansion were to meet today for a first partnering session.
A consortium of KGS (Rick Carson, P.Eng.), Acres and UMA have won the contract to be the lead consultants on the expansion, which will cost an estimated $660 million and is expected to start construction in the spring of 2005.
The overall scheme is to increase the depth and width of the existing Floodway channel, which runs for 42 kilometres east and north around Winnipeg from a massive Inlet Structure at St. Norbert (see CCE June/July 2003). The expansion will make the channel 1 to 2 metres deeper and up to 100 metres wider in some places. After the changes the discharge capacity will be 13,000 cubic metres per second compared to about 8,350 cubic metres per second now.
Other consulting engineers hired to do predesign on the expansion include ND Lea and Dillon for bridges and transportation, SNC-Lavalin and Wardrop for the inlet structure, Stantec and Teshmont for utility crossings, and TetrEs for the environmental assessment work. KGS, Acres and UMA will do predesign of the outlet structure.
The province decided it had to enhance the flood protection around Winnipeg after the city was almost inundated by spring waters along the Red River in 1997. The federal government and the province have so far given $250 million in a joint funding agreement.
Potential damage to Winnipeg should the existing floodway system fail has been estimated at up to $6 billion dollars.