Construction on the firebreak southeast of Grande Prairie has officially been completed.
The project, a 30-kilometre-long firebreak, originally estimated to cost $7.5 million, was funded through a $5 million grant from the Province of Alberta and the remaining $2.5 million to be split between the City and County of Grande Prairie was constructed to help reduce fire hazards in the southeast. Chief of Public and Protective Services for the City Dan Lemieux says the project has come in significantly below budget.
“The project has actually come in under budget, right now we’re estimating around $4.2 million so less than the $5 million,” he says. “The agreement with the province was that provincial funding would be used first so we may not need to contribute municipal funding either from the city or the county so that’s our hope that the costs remain below four or five million dollars and it will be funded by the provincial government.”
According to Lemieux, the bulk of the project has been completed and all that’s left to do now is a small amount of cleanup and maintenance, so the city remains “hopeful” that the project will be funded entirely by the province.
“I believe that the province of Alberta will pay the $4.2 million I don’t think there’s any provision for them to give us the remaining $800K, it will just be a provincial project that has come in under budget.”
Construction on the firebreak began last May and should be operational before this year’s fire season.