INGLESIDE – Visitors to the Upper Canada Migratory Bird Sanctuary will see construction of a section of boardwalk on the Red Wing Trail later this summer.
“We’re just finishing up the engineering on it (phase one – a 580 foot section (176 meter) of the Red Wing Trail), we’ve got a project management group in place, just about ready to announce that, and then we’ll firm up the engineering approval and then start…the trail,” Manager Lou Seiler told Cornwall Newswatch Monday.
Phase One will be done by year’s end, Seiler said, though there was a minor setback.
“A lot of it is getting the engineering in place, the design firmed up. We’ve had to re-engineer in the last few months because we originally were using steel anchors (for the boardwalk) but when we did our soil testing we went down 27 feet (eight meters) and found nothing solid so that took steel anchors out of the picture,” he said.
The plan is for a “very unique” floating system which will have less environmental impact.
Seiler and members of the Friends of the Sanctuary were at the interpretive center Monday to hear MP Guy Lauzon announce $100,000 in federal funding for trail upgrades for phases two and three of the boardwalk improvements.
Phase two will fix up another span of the Red Wing Trail of roughly 388 feet (118 meters) as well as the preliminary work for phase three, which is two sections of the Blue Heron Trail. Those sections are 370 and 820 feet (112 and 249 meters) long.
The Blue Heron Trail is closed to traffic right now.
This is a continuation of the funding announced in February of $45,000 for Phase One of the Red Wing – one of the heaviest used trails in the system.
The money is coming from the National Wetland Conservation Fund with varying investment amounts from the St. Lawrence Parks Commission and the Friend of the Sanctuary.
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