Staff
With the aim to have it in place prior to deer rutting season this fall, the new wildlife control fence at Fort Frances Airport will start going up shortly.
Operations and Facilities manager Doug Brown said Monday that a pre-construction meeting with the contractor, Wilco Contractors Superior Inc., was held Aug. 18, and that the contractor has ordered all the required materials.
Materials are expected to arrive later this week, after which construction can begin.
The five-km long fence will surround the entire airport property to prevent wildlife, especially deer, from getting in.
It will be a 2.4-metre high, fixed-knot game fence complete with two-strand high-tensile wire.
The fence is scheduled to be complete by Oct. 14.
Earlier this month, council awarded the fence tender to Wilco at an estimated cost of $381,743.38, which includes HST, a contingency allowance of $20,000, and with provisional items of 20 poles set in bedrock.
Funding for the fencing to the tune of $589,900 was announced June 29 through Transport Canada’s Airports Capital Assistance Program (ACAP).
Since the bid which came in actually was below the grant amount, the town will have to refund the difference.
As previously reported, the local airport has experienced problems with deer on the runway for the past several years.
While permitting members of the Fort Frances Sportsmen’s Club to hunt deer at the airport served as a short-term solution, the town always maintained the preferred long-term one was a wildlife fence.
