Dear editor:
I live on Ross Avenue in Cochrane’s East End, which has been significantly affected by the water and sewer upgrades that were started at the beginning of July.
It is now almost the end of September and we continue to live with incredible amounts of dirt and dust, noise, wall to wall cars parked on our street and the inconvenience of not reliably being able to use our road – as Lindsay (Seewalt) said in the Eagle article, “Detouring around mud holes and backhoes to make their way home.”
Our street is covered in chunks of mud, stones and in some places, rocks. I’m not sure of the integrity of the pavement anymore, as our road is the main corridor for the heavy machinery from the project. Clouds of dirt and dust swirl around it and onto our homes, cars and outdoor furniture. The construction starts at 7 a.m. until 8 p.m. many days and often through the weekends.
Despite the town saying we received notice of this project being done – we did not – no signs were placed on our roads and no written notice was given to us other than to advise us our water would be turned off.
I realize this is a large project, but in my opinion it would have impacted fewer people for less amount of time if the contractor had worked on a section at a time rather than tearing up several streets and leaving them filled with mud and debris for three months.
I realize that repairs do have to happen, especially in an older section of the town. However, with projects of this magnitude the town should properly advise residents of what to expect and do everything it can to minimize disruption to the residents.
It is unacceptable that any opportunity we could have had to enjoy the outdoors for the short amount of summer we have is gone.
There has been no reprieve from the misery this project has caused us.
Terry Robertson
