If you have a plugged or frozen culvert that is preventing water from flowing please fill out the Road Issue Form or call Public Works to report the issue. An employee of the County will assess the situation and deal with the culvert in the most efficient way possible. However, with over 8000 culverts in the County, the Public Works department must choose which culverts to attend to first in order to promote the safety of County roads.

The County is often asked if it can increase the size of certain culverts. There are many factors to consider before a decision can be made. One factor to consider is if the culvert is regularly backed up or if it is just a wet year, another is if the culverts downstream can handle the flow of extra water. In making the decision to increase a culvert’s size, the County must consider factors like these to ensure that the problem is not just shifted downstream.

Once the decision has been made to replace a culvert, the process of replacing a culvert depends on the priority of the culvert in relation to other culverts that must also be replaced. Safety is the top priority which means that culvert issues that could cause serious harm to a driver on County roads must be dealt with first.

Before beginning any project an Alberta One Call must be made to protect the workers from buried pipelines and cables. This can take up to 2-3 weeks, but cannot be omitted. Once the replacement begins it will take between 1 and 3 days for the culvert to be replaced depending on the size of the culvert, the surrounding environment, and the weather.