An engineer has been sanctioned for work conducted on six rural municipal (RM) bridges, including one that collapsed nearly five years ago in east-central Saskatchewan.

The Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of Saskatchewan (APEGS) suspended Scott O. Gullacher for 18 months, with three years of direct supervision thereafter. The suspension started on June 8th, 2022 when Gullacher was first ordered not to practice professional engineering. Gullacher will not be allowed to work on bridges and bridge projects for a period five years. He is also being fined the maximum $15,000 and will pay the $32,000 cost of the APEGS investigation.

The Dyck Memorial Bridge in the RM of Clayton, in the Norquay area, collapsed on September 14, 2018. The APEGS investigation found Gullacher failed to practice in a careful and diligent manner by not employing site-specific geotechnical analysis and by not providing adequate engineer designs for the helical pile foundation.

The designs prepared by Gullacher for five other bridges lacked relevant design information, which resulted in structures that were unable to carry the minimum loads as required by the Canadian Highway Bridge Design Code. Two of the five bridges are in the RM of Perdue and the others in the RMs of Scott, Mervin and Caledonia.