Abbotsford residents fed up with noise from provincial project so loud it 'shakes the house'

Arne Larsen watches gravel trucks pass by his home on the way to the Strong Pit reclamation site. (CTV News)

Residents of a rural Abbotsford neighbourhood are fed up with the noise from a provincial project that has meant hundreds of dump trucks rumbling up and down their street in the middle of the night.

“Between the hours of 10 at night and 4 in the morning, I would say between 200 and 300 trucks will make their way in and out of the pit,” said long-time resident Arne Larsen, referring to the Strong Pit reclamation site on King Road.

Larsen said the surge in traffic began about a year ago, with the large trucks hauling out dirt from the Highway 1 expansion project in the Fraser Valley.

But he said the truck noise is not even the worst of it.

Rather, he said, it’s the 5 a.m. scraping and cleaning of the road from the dirt left by trucks that’s the biggest disturbance.

“That shakes the house. It’s so loud, and my wife’s going bonkers. She can’t sleep,” Larsen explained.

He said he’s certain the City of Abbotsford’s noise bylaws are being broken.

In a statement to CTV News, the city said it "has received complaints of trucks at the Strong Pit operating outside of the hours designated within the noise bylaw. Staff have been in contact with residents to advise them we are working with the Ministry (of Transportation) to resolve the situation.”

Larsen said he understands the importance of the Highway 1 expansion and is only asking that the hours for cleaning King Road be pushed back.

Meanwhile, the area’s Conservative MLA, formerly in the trucking industry, said a lot of the cleaning issues could be resolved with a wheel wash at the pit site.

“You drive through it and it sprays water at the truck, the undercarriage and the tires, and it cleans off a good portion of the mud that would be tracked onto the road,” said Langley-Abbotsford MLA Harman Bhangu.

Larsen said residents have been trying for months to get the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure to address concerns to no avail.

But Friday, the ministry responded to a CTV News inquiry.

And there was good news for neighbours.

In a written statement, the ministry said:

“The ministry respects the concerns of residents next to Strong Pit and is evaluating the disposal and road cleaning schedules to see what improvements can be made to lessen the impact on residents. As a first step, the scraping activities along King Road will occur during day hours, starting after 7 a.m.”

The statement also noted that municipal noise regulations don’t apply to provincial projects but that the ministry is "aware of concerns" and "considering what improvements can be made to reduce the impact on residents."

The ministry further explained that material is hauled in and out of the Highway 1 project at night "in the interest of the safety and capacity of the 80,000 to 100,000 vehicles that use Highway 1 each day."

The soil being trucked to Strong Pit will aid in the reclamation of that site and help return it to the Agricultural Land Reserve.