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The cost of the federal contract for clearing out the Big Bar landslide has tripled to $52.5 million as crews try to meet the "very, very difficult" goal of allowing salmon to migrate naturally along the Fraser River in B.C.'s southern Interior.
Peter Kiewit Sons' contract with the federal government has now been amended 17 times since it was awarded to the construction giant on Dec. 31 at an original value of $17.6 million.
On a call with reporters earlier this week, Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) project leader Gwil Roberts said Kiewit has fulfilled the terms of the original contract, but it became obvious early on that more work would be necessary.
"We knew from the start that this is a very difficult place to work and there's a mass amount of material that has landed in this river. We're talking about 75,000 cubic metres of rock," Roberts said.
"To remove enough of that to restore natural fish passage … it was a very, very difficult objective and that's the challenge that is still facing us."
In the meantime, with the annual salmon runs fast approaching, "what we realized in a pretty timely fashion here was that we needed other measures for fish to move over the slide site," Roberts said.
That includes building a concrete fish ladder and installing a pneumatic tube system to help salmon move past the rock fall.