I am a seasonal resident with a summer home on the Trout River Road that has a view of Gunns Bridge; now the "new" Gunns Bridge or as someone earlier this year in a letter to The Guardian called it, "The Bridge to Nowhere".
For many summers now I have been visiting Gunns Bridge every evening to observe the state of the river for a survey run by the P.E.I. government. In previous years, the typical characteristics I observed at this time of year were water colours like lime-ricky and milky, a strong odour from decaying sea lettuce and a resultant anoxic river. This year, I am happy to report that the Trout River shows none of these signs. Almost no discolouration, no build-up of dead sea lettuce, no smell, not only at Gunns Bridge, but even further up river.
The doubling of the bridge span in the new bridge has meant that dead sea lettuce has not been able to build up above the bridge but has been washed down river. The river just needed a chance to cleanse itself. I don't think the government could do anything more beneficial towards improving the environment than doubling the width of all the spans of all the bridge/causeway combinations across all the rivers of P.E.I. Indeed, why wait for a hurricane to make it necessary to do something? I would be happy to see the tax dollars I contribute spent in this way.
While I'm at it, kudos to Highfield Construction for a job really well done.
Andrew Pletch,
Millvale
