Town to borrow $400,000 for sewer line replacement

By Rob Vogt, Local Press Writer

Claresholm town council has taken the first step in borrowing $400,000 for replacement of a sewer line from the airport to the sewer lagoons that will cost a total of about $1.14 million.

The decision came at council’s March 26 meeting after they reviewed a report from administration.

The project is to construct a sewer main trunk line from the airport to the sewage Lagoons to address a bottleneck in the sewer system where two 525-millimetre sewer mains converge into one 525-millimetre sewer main to then carry sanitary sewage to the sewage lagoons west of town.

This creates a bottleneck in the system that is more prone to backup and flooding.

The current sewer main line to the sewage lagoons is also a concrete main that has sustained significant erosion and corrosion. This project would be to replace this current 525-millimetre concrete sewer main with 750-millimetre pvc, or plastic, sewer main.

This main carries all the town’s sanitary sewer to the sewage lagoons. Therefore it is a critical piece of infrastructure.

The maximum estimated cost of the project will be $1,140,000.

This being the case the borrowing bylaw will reflect this maximum amount required to complete the project. The amount that is required may be less once the project is completed depending on the actual project costs. This borrowing bylaw reflects the maximum amount of $400,000 that would be required to be borrowed.

The remainder of funding will be $540,000 from provincial grants and $200,000 from the town’s capital reserves.

Second and third reading of the bylaw cannot be given until it is advertised for two consecutive weeks.

Consequently, the item will be back on council’s agenda for its April 23 meeting.

It is hoped to have engineering done during the spring with construction occurring mid to late summer with requirement for funds in the fall to finance the project.