(AUDIO) "Abundance of caution" the focus of arena report

If there’s an accumulation of 150 mm of snow or more on the barrel roof at West Ferris Arena, programming at the facility will be suspended until the snow melts or is removed.

That’s the result of a preliminary report being received from the engineers completing a Condition Assessment of the city’s arenas.

Officials say it’s being done out of an abundance of caution.

Chair of Community Services Councillor Mark King says equipment will be available to gauge the amount of snow on the roof on a regular basis.

Staff will be monitoring the accumulation of snow throughout the winter and the city will be exploring alternatives to see if they can reduce the potential accumulation or remove snow so the don’t reach that 150 mm limit that would suspend programming.

They will also be developing a short term rehabilitation plan to ensure the year round safe operation of the facility.

The city has directed the engineering firm to complete a load capacity analysis of the barrel roof at West Ferris Arena.

In a release, Councillor King states “the safety of our users and employees is paramount and the City is taking a proactive approach.  Therefore in the case where 150 mm of snow does accumulate on the barrel roof programming at West Ferris Arena will be suspended until such time as the snow accumulation on the roof decreases to safe limits or is safely removed.” 

City arena staff is unaware if the facility has ever had an accumulation of 150 mm of snow accumulate on the round section of the facility’s barrel roof nor does the engineering consulting firm know if the facility naturally sheds the snow so that there is nominal or insignificant accumulation of snow on the barrel roof.

Vice Chair of Community Services Daryl Vaillancourt commented that “utilizing previous work completed during the recent Multi-use Recreational Facilities study, development of longer term plans to ensure the availability of ice facilities for our community continues.” 

The City’s long term Capital Budget Plan has allocated funds for capital reinvestment at West Ferris Arena in 2018.  “These funds could be considered to be moved forward should it be deemed necessary,” added Chair Mark King.

The Managing Director – Community Services John Severino indicates that “the City’s Arena Department has established Standard Operating Procedures that will be used to regularly monitor the accumulation of snow on the barrel roof throughout the winter.  In addition, we are exploring alternatives to determine if we can either reduce the potential accumulation or remove snow from the barrel roof so that we do not reach the identified snow accumulation limit that would suspend programming.”