After lying sideways in a ditch for two weeks, the crane truck has been removed from Lochside drive
The ground around the tipped vehicle is soft and saturated farm land, so gravel rock pads had to be brought in for two crane trucks who performed the lift. The crane truck was lifted up and out of the ditch this Thursday afternoon, and righted it on the street.
The removal of the vehicle was a combined effort by a crane truck contractor, ICBC, the owner of the vehicle, and the CRD.
Ted Robbins, General Manager of Integrated Water Services with the CRD, says they became involved with removing the crane truck because of it's proximity to a water transmission main that serves the entire Saanich Peninsula.
"We don't have a redundant pipe out to the peninsula, so what that means is if this main was to be impacted in any way, or damaged as a result of the crane lying in it's current location, or through the removal process, we would potentially have no drinking water or ire protection water for the Saanich Peninsula, which of course includes the three municipalities, the airport, the ferry terminal and the Saanich Peninsula hospitals. So that's really why the CRD got involved, to ensure that the plan to remove the crane was not going to impact the water main in any way."
He says the Ministry of Environment has also been involved in the removal process to make sure there was no impact on the environment.
"There's hydraulic fluid, gas and diesel within the crane. We've been mitigating the environmental risk throughout the week with an environmental consultant. We also took the extra step of removing the hydraulic fluid and fuels from the vehicle, out of it's reservoirs, in order to mitigate that risk should the tanks or the lines fail in the lift process."
He says they've been working on mitigating the environmental risk all week, removing contaminated water and soil from the site, and they plan on having the site cleaned up by Friday afternoon.
Robbins could not specify how much it cost to remove the vehicle this way, but did say they would be working with the vehicle's owner and ICBC to recover the costs. He says doing it right and mitigating the risks to the main would cost less than if the removal impacted the water main in any way.