CARSTAIRS -- A project that will see the water line twinned from Anthony Henday Water Treatment Plant northwest of Innisfail right down the 2A corridor to Crossfield is close to being on schedule and on budget, according to officials.
Crews are currently working on Phase 2 of the project, which runs from Didsbury to Crossfield. Phase 1 from the plant to Olds was completed several years ago.
Rick Blair, chair of Mountain View Regional Water Services Commission and a Carstairs town councillor, said the total cost of the project is about $100 million.
"The cost for this phase of the project is $33 million," said Blair. "It's broken up into four projects. The one contract from Carstairs to Crossfield, all the pipe is in the ground. They (Hamm Construction) started in August and they're pretty much done.
"For the contract from Didsbury to Carstairs, they will be working until probably June to get this in. That is being done by a local contractor, Pidherneys from the Red Deer area."
The project was spurred by growth in communities along the line, he said.
Blair said the Didsbury to Carstairs section is expected to be completed around June or July.
"There has been a bit of a setback due to the extreme cold weather we've had," he said. "But they're still pretty close to being on schedule and on budget. Most of the work is done in the Town of Carstairs to get to our reservoir.
"There will obviously have to be some rehabilitation done in the spring after the thaw is out."
Motorists can expect to see more speed limit restrictions on the highway where crews have equipment operating, he said.
"They submit a traffic plan to Alberta Transportation and it's approved through them," he said. "Hopefully, it's not too cumbersome for the locals."
The twinning of the water line will greatly help efficiency for the water system, he said.
"Over the past five or seven years the southern towns have been on more or less water rationing through the hot summer months depending on how much water has been used," he said. "We've needed this for a while. We've submitted our plans to the provincial government.
'We've got provincial funding for 42 per cent of the project."
The twinning project should allow all the towns in the corridor to have a safe supply of water for the next 50 years, he said.
"This is a pretty big deal for us," he said. "The whole project will be $100 million that we've spent over the last seven or eight years to upgrade this line. We've done pumping upgrades at the same time to the mid-point reservoir, adding pumps and upgrading ones that we have and the systems we have.
"That should put us in good shape for the next 50 years."
Blair expects the entire project will wrap up by the end of August.
