The Hamilton Boulevard extension project is still on hold while the health and safety board completes its investigation.
“I just got off the phone with Occupational Health and Safety,” said project manager Jeff Boehmer on Friday.
“They’re not going to be lifting the order until they have completely reviewed all of the documentation that we’ve provided them,” said Boehmer.
It was thought that the board would lift the ban last Friday to allow work on the road to continue.
The report is nearly complete now and Occupational Health and Safety should be releasing it by the end of the week.
It’s been over a month since a botched blast rained cat and dog-sized granite boulders onto Lobird subdivision.
It was the second time that workers for Sidhu Trucking had blown debris into the subdivision, said residents.
A no-work order was placed on all blasting in the area while the incident was being investigated.
There’s no way of knowing how the delay will impact the project’s schedule, said Boehmer.
“We were looking at getting it finished by October, but that’s not going to happen,” he said.
“I can’t assume when the road will now be finished because everything is tied together.
“The contractor says to me, ‘Well, until I know when the order is lifted and until I know how much rock I can blast on any given day I won’t be able to tell you when the blasting will be done so that I can do the rest of the work.’”
Once the order is lifted, a specialist will be brought to the territory to review the new blast plan and give it his approval.
The delay and increased safety requirements that are likely to come out of the health and safety board’s recommendation will no doubt raise costs for the contractor, said Boehmer.
But these extra costs won’t be passed on to the Yukon government and its taxpayers.
“I think we’re going to fight that because we’re going to say, ‘what has really changed?’” said Boehmer.
“You knew there was rock near the Yukon Gardens when you bid the job and nothing has changed.”