Loewen Boulevard east of Old Tom Road will not see any upgrades this year.

La Broquerie Reeve Lewis Weiss says the road was evaluated with the RM of Ste. Anne and was determined to have poor sub-grade in combination with very wet conditions from the June and July rains. RM of Ste. Anne Reeve Art Bergmann says when they met with La Broquerie they went to see what the road was like underneath the surface.

"We drilled test holes and found that there was very poor quality material under the current road, it was wet and sloppy and would have to be hauled away."

Bergmann adds the cost of repairing the road at this point in time would be a much higher cost and go above the proposed budget. Bergmann and Weiss note they decided to take the sides of the road and packed it on top as a temporary measure, narrowing the portion of road from 35 feet to 23 feet.

"Now that the road is higher, if in spring time the road is looking good, maybe we'll decide we could get away with just topping it every couple years with gravel," says Weiss.

 Weiss adds another reason La Broquerie decided not to proceed with the Loewen Boulevard project was because their road repair budget was reallocated to other road repairs.

"Because of all the disastrous conditions at the beginning [of spring], we put so much cost into repairing all over and so many roads needed gravel all over the RM. We just figured, for this year, we would drop one or two of our big projects and devote the finances to the gravelling and repairing here, there, and everywhere."

Bergmann says the two municipalities share the road, La Broquerie looks after the portion from Steinbach to Provincial Road 210 and Ste. Anne looks after the portion from Provincial Road 302 west.