A culvert collapse in Qualicum Beach is being fixed as fast as possible as the weather keeps getting wetter.
"There's almost an emergency repair required on a culvert on Village Way," Director of Engineering Bob Weir informed town council last week.
"The culvert failure is causing the Village Way roadway to slough and the roadway and utilities are threatened," he said of an eight foot bank that fell away from the side of the road around the downstream end of the culvert carrying Beach Creek under Village Way at Hemsworth Road.
Weir said a joint failed in the corroded culvert and as much as 15 feet of backfill sloughed off the bank.
Pictures from inside the culvert show a green tree branch through a gap in the culvert at a spot that should be 14 feet underground, Weir said.
He said with fall's "wet weather approaching it's unlikely to survive season," adding that it's a fish carrying stream.
He said because of the urgency they brought in a culvert realigning specialist they have worked with before to asses the situation and either fix it or at least stabilize the bank as fast as possible.
The specialist said the first 30 metres of the pipe are fine but the last six metres will have to be replaced. Weir estimated the work at $50,000 to $70,000 but that is an early estimate.
He said the work is also complicated by the existence of "a significant buried telephone cable in the area, on that side of the road," which they have to work around.