By AMY PUGSLEY FRASER City Hall Reporter

Salmon in the Sackville River shouldn't be put ahead of the safety of Shore Drive residents, the deputy mayor says.

Coun. Len Goucher, whose Bedford constituency includes Shore Drive, received unanimous support at Halifax regional council Tuesday night to have the municipality make representations to the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans to reverse a stop-work order on the Shore Drive Bridge.

"That bridge is the only speedy way to get emergency vehicles into Shore Drive," Mr. Goucher told his fellow councillors at their weekly meeting.

The project, just four weeks in, was halted last Friday because the department was concerned that the installation of new piers would interfere with the salmon run, Mr. Goucher said.

"I'm not trying to make light of that at all, because I think it's very important," he said.

"But when you start doing a balancing act between public safety and the salmon run on the Sackville River, I'm sorry, but the residents have to come first."

The $821,387.50 bridge project, started by Leslie & Benn Contracting on Sept. 6, was meant to be wrapped up by Nov. 21.

But with a delay from Sept. 30 to Nov. 1 to accommodate the salmon, Shore Drive residents could be making a detour around the Chickenburger restaurant and Dartmouth Road all winter, he said.

"When you start getting into November, you start getting into a time when concrete doesn't cure the same way," Mr. Goucher told reporters after the meeting.

"I'm not sure that they are going to be in a position to be able to finish the bridge if they don't continue."

One Shore Drive resident said Tuesday night that although the detour "bugs" him, he wouldn't mind putting up with it for a few more weeks if it meant saving the salmon.

"If it's a serious salmon run, then they better take priority," Gilbert Winham, a 30-year resident of the street, said in an interview.

"I'm just profoundly delighted that (the salmon) have come back."

Salmon stock suffered a blow from development and acid rain from the 1960s through the late 1980s.

Mr. Winham's words were echoed by the president of the Nova Scotia Salmon Association.

"We feel it's imperative to preserve what stocks do remain," David Reid said in an interview.

"It's not so much that we oppose construction, it's just the timing of it."

Mr. Goucher, who said his dad was an avid salmon fisherman who would "probably argue the point with me," said there has to be a compromise so the situation can work for everyone.

apugsley