KITCHENER — The extensive archeological finds uncovered during improvements to Fischer-Hallman Road have helped double the cost of the road project.
The project will widen Fischer-Hallman to four lanes from Bleams to Plains roads, add three roundabouts and twin box culverts at Strasburg Creek. The original cost was expected to be between $10 million and $12 million but is now expected to be $22 million to $23 million.
About $6.3 million of that extra cost is for archeological work, after evidence of an Indigenous settlement was first uncovered on the site. Other cost increases include building a temporary road to keep traffic flowing while the dig continued, as well as an escalation in construction costs.
The project began in 2020. This spring will be the third season that a team of archeologists has been meticulously excavating the site, uncovering a treasure trove of artifacts from a substantial Late Woodland Iroquoian village, likely dating from 1350 to 1600.
“It’s very labour-intensive work,” Phil Bauer, director of design and construction at the Region of Waterloo, told regional councillors at a meeting earlier this month.
“It’s all hand-digging one-metre-by-one-metre-square units to recover and catalogue and map all of the artifacts being found.”
So far, archeologists have excavated 1,385 square-metre units and uncovered about 80,000 artifacts, ranging from pottery and stone tools, carbonized seeds of corn and beans, clay pipes, stone beads, bone jewelry and a 4,000-year-old arrowhead.
Archeologists will need to work for at least four more months on the west side of the project, Bauer said. Once they’re done, the provincial Ministry of Heritage, Sport, Tourism and Culture will need to clear the site before construction can proceed. That will likely take until at least the end of September or early October, regional officials say.
That means underground servicing and road widening work will spill over into…
