Province still working on plan to dispose of Dorian debris piles on P.E.I.

As residents and work crews continue to clear piles of debris left from post-tropical storm Dorian, provincial officials have another issue on their hands — figuring out what to do with giant wood piles scattered throughout the Island.

'It was more significant than we even thought'

Tom Steepe · CBC News · Posted: Oct 31, 2019 5:00 AM EDT | Last Updated: October 31, 2019

The province is still trying to figure out what to do with about 20 large piles of trees and yard debris collected after Dorian. (Tom Steepe/CBC)

The province estimates that about 20 piles of trees and yard debris have been created, with more expected to come.

"It was more significant than we even thought it was going to be when we started this whole process," said Steven Myers, minister of transportation, energy and infrastructure.

"When I talked about this before there were a lot of trees that were down across Prince Edward Island, but I didn't realize there was the degree of trees down that there actually was. So it was a big undertaking by our department and our crews worked really hard to get this much of the cleanup done to this point."

It's been almost two months since post-tropical storm Dorian hit P.E.I.

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Prepare for winter

The province still has crews working in several areas to haul away fallen branches and twigs and pick up debris set along area roads by residents.

It said it's received close to 800 calls for assistance and the work is nearly 80 per cent complete.

Some of the yard debris was taken to Island Waste Management, but many of the larger trees and branches ended up in piles, like this one in Charlottetown. (Tom Steepe/CBC)

Myers said the province wants curbside debris removal finished in November in order to allow road crews to prepare for winter operations.

"Right now we're we're trying to switch modes and get into our winter mode in case it happens to snow early," Myers said.

No rush

The province said while it's looked at chipping the material, that doesn't seem to be a viable option, and it's still considering how to dispose of the debris.

"We don't want to rush in do anything, you know, anything with it at this point until we know we can make a good decision on what we should be using it for," said Myers.