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Wednesday, April 19, 2017
Issue 50
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No decisions made on Highway 39 Highways 39 and 6 from Estevan to Regina. The Time to Twin committee has panned the idea of passing lanes in the past, claiming passing lanes wouldn’t enhance safety. “Our stance has always been … that highways with this kind of heavy truck traffic need to be twinned,” said Young. “These highways from North Portal to Regina are considered part of Canada’s national highway system, and when I Googled that years ago, it talks about how the national system highways are not single lanes, they’re double-laned.” Doug Wakabayashi with the Ministry of Highways and Infrastructure, said they are in the process of wrapping up the general location study for Highways 39 and 6. “Basically the outcome of that is it defines the cen-
By David Willberg dwillberg@estevanmercury.ca
The Time to Twin Highways 39 and 6 committee hasn’t been as active in recent years, but they continue to lobby for double lanes for the highways from North Portal to Regina. Marge Young, who helped form the committee eight years ago and remains the committee’s co-chair along with Lorelei Ireland, said they are concerned with the provincial government’s stance on the highways. In the last two provincial budgets, the government has said they will continue to plan for a combination of twinning and passing lanes for the 240-kilometre stretch of highway. The government had announced in 2013 their objective to twin
tre lane of the new lanes for the highway. Once that’s done, we’ll get into functional planning, which lays out how the roadway will work,” said Wakabayashi. If the ministry opts for a phased approach to twinning, Wakabayashi said there might be some areas where passing lanes might work as an interim measure until traffic volumes reach a level where full twinning is justified. “We’ve completed passing lanes on Highway 7 in the Rosetown area, and also Highway 10 between Balgonie and Fort Qu’Appelle, and have had really good experience with them,” he said. The passing lanes are usually about 10 kilometres long per set. On Highway 10 between Balgonie and Fort Qu’Appelle, there are four sets, he said. Still, Young and the
New obstetrician arrives in Estevan By David Willberg dwillberg@estevanmercury.ca
Estevan has its new obstetrician and gynecologist, ending a five-month spell in which the services weren’t available at St. Joseph’s Hospital. Dr. Ahmad Sawwan’s first day practicing in the city was on Sunday. His office is located at the medical clinic inside St. Joe’s. Sawwan is originally Dr. Ahmad Sawwan is welcomed to St. Joseph’s from Egypt and went to Hospital by executive director Greg Hoffort. medical school in that coun- life, it shows right away,” change and improve.” try. He then worked as a said Sawwan. He has worked in other family doctor outside of He decided to accept small and medium-sized Egypt for nine years. the job at St. Joseph’s be- hospitals, and St. Joseph’s Sawwan came to Can- cause of the friendly people fit the bill for Sawwan due ada about a dozen years ago he encountered while visit- to its size and its staff. to complete his obstetrics ing the city last November. “It has a lot of potential and gynecology residence “I think a major part of to grow, and grow in a way at Memorial University my job that I want to do is the community would apin Newfoundland. He has go into a medium-sized hos- preciate,” said Sawwan. practiced in Newfound- pital and an impact on the St. Joseph’s is wellland, Labrador and New way things are, and try to equipped and well-mainBrunswick. implement what we learned tained hospital, and the He’ll be the only obste- in college,” said Sawwan. employees are motivated to trician in the Sun Country “That wasn’t going to do a good job. Health Region. be easy if I had applied to a Estevan was also a per“It’s no cliché in ob- much bigger hospital with fect fit for him, he said. stetrics that when you save norms and routines that a mother’s life and a baby’s would be more difficult to OBSTETRICIAN⇢A2
This could be the last year that Highway 39 between Estevan and the junction with Highway 18 would be a two-lane highway, as a second set of lanes could be finished this year. But the future of the rest of Highway 39 is uncertain. other committee members aren’t supportive of passing lanes. She suggested Highways 39 and 6 should be twinned incrementally, as the province can afford it, just like other highways in the province. “Even though the traffic numbers are down a bit now with the economy,
they’ll come back up,” said Young. “But even with the numbers we have now, most of the parts are still over 5,000 vehicles, which is their magic number for twinning.” Young also doesn’t want to see the government construct passing lanes, and then remove them in the future to be replaced with
double lanes. “Don’t spend the money on something you’re going to rip out. Do it properly the first time,” said Young. She is discouraged that passing lanes are being discussed again, and that so much money and attention are being dedicated to the Regina bypass project.
PART⇢A2
Water flow and storage moving along on projected model and plans There is no need for panic in southeast Saskatchewan as far as water flow from regional reservoirs are concerned. But, at the same time, it isn’t a good time to rest easy either. “We never breathe easy when it comes to this time of year,” said Patrick Boyle, spokesman for the Saskatchewan Water Security Agency (WSA), who spoke with the Mercury on the morning of April 17 from his Moose Jaw office. “The Rafferty, Alameda and Boundary Dam reservoirs are all near capacity. We are currently diverting water from Boundary Dam into Rafferty Dam at a rate of four cubic metres per second and releasing from Rafferty into the river system at a rate of 10 cubic metres per second,” said Boyle referring to the water management model the agency is following this week. “The rate of release from Alameda reservoir is five cubic metres per second. The creek and river systems could handle 20 to 25 cubic metres per second and that would still be less than half of what they could actually accommodate,” he said. Boyle said flows from the two reser-
voirs will be reduced in the relatively near future to accommodate potential rainfall events. “Mother Nature has helped us out. Cooler temperatures along with some freezing at nights, has slowed the snowpack melt and flow. The snow pack in the southeast region should pretty well be complete with the exception of a few spots.” Boyle added that at this particular stage, the focus will be trained on potential rain storms, or perhaps a freak, late April snow storm since they are not unheard of in this province, and generally, not welcomed. “If we get a week or two of heavy rainfall, it would change the picture. There are continuing concerns downstream with regards to water levels and saturated soil, but that is out of our control here. We are holding back what we could and in accordance with our international agreement. They had a heavy snow pack in North Dakota and western Manitoba, so they are dealing with their wet conditions but we haven’t received a lot of calls from them.”
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