After sitting on a the edge of a James Bay neighbourhood street since March, nearly a kilometre-long length of pipe was pulled toward its final destination under Victoria Harbour on Tuesday.
The pipe, staged along Niagara Street, was pulled by equipment at the Macaulay Point side of the harbour. The job was made easier by a series of rollers on braces on which the pipe sat from Oswego Street nearly up to Government Street. Six cranes cradled long sections of the assembled pipe in slings out front of the Edelweiss Club near the Dallas Road end of Niagara, while a couple of others lifted the pipe further out either side of the length.
Crowds gathered midday at various points along the pipe’s former resting place to watch this engineering spectacle take place, and children from nearby James Bay Community School were brought down for a field trip to check out the proceedings. The work required full closure of Niagara Street to vehicles past Menzies Street for hours.
This pipe will eventually link up with another to be laid under the north edge of Dallas Road, coming from the Clover Point pump station. Both will carry the eastern flows of wastewater from Saanich, Oak Bay and Victoria.
