SUNDRE – Town residents can rest assured they won’t be asked to stop taking showers any time too soon.
As crews in Calgary race to repair a ruptured feeder line that prompted city officials to impose widespread water consumption restrictions, crews in Sundre are working to complete a planned overhaul of underground infrastructure.
The municipality draws its water from two hydraulic wells that are influenced by the Red Deer River, said Jim Hall, Sundre’s operations manager.
“One is the work horse, the other one is a makeup well,” Hall told the Albertan.
As far as feeder mains go, Sundre is small enough that the work being done on a six-inch line along the Highway 27-Main Avenue corridor is what Hall said he would consider a local feeder main.
“But it’s all been completed and pressure tested and operational now due to that project,” he said.
Among the risks Sundre could potentially face would be a water shortage caused by unexpected issues with the wells, he said.
“We maintain our wells to ensure that we have that water, and with the amount of groundwater that Sundre has, we always have a pretty good source, whereas some of the bigger municipalities may not have that groundwater,” he said.
“We’re a little bit more protected here with our lines; we can shut valves in and feed back backwards because we’re small enough,” he said.
Throughout the course of the ongoing construction in Sundre, Hall said, “We found lots of leak paths in the piping as we went down Highway 27, so it was an excellent project to do.”
Yet even prior to those leaks being addressed, the municipality’s water plant was able to keep up with demand, he said, adding that of course wasn’t an ideal situation.
So although certainly not outside the realm of possibility, the probability of a catastrophic failure such as the one in Calgary befalling Sundre seems remote.
“What we’d have to have here is an entire line split open or something like that,” he said, adding he struggles to imagine such a scenario.
“We don’t have a major trunk feeder that everything feeds off of; so, there’s a myriad of different size in pipe that goes through,” he elaborated.
There is a major line; a 16-inch pipe that goes from Bearberry Creek up to the corner at Joko’s before branching off into Centre Street, but that piece of infrastructure remains “relatively new,” he said, adding that line has been upgraded a couple of times over the past 20 years, most recently about six years ago.
“So, it’s newer material. Having said that, if that ever broke, we would have crews on there quite quickly,” he said.
“If we were sitting on 16-inch ductile iron from the 1960s, yeah that would be our concern and we would be addressing that,” he later added.
“We’re in pretty good shape with when it comes to our larger-diameter stuff,” he said.
Speaking from an operations manager’s perspective in offering parting thoughts, Hall said, “the biggest thing I noticed is the amount of infrastructure that needs to be repaired in Canada, let alone just Alberta, is massive.”
“Every municipality – short of some that have just grabbed the bull by the horns and done upgrades – faces this as aging infrastructure” deteriorates and construction costs surge, he said.
“From two years ago to now, the costs are so much higher – not just because of the carbon tax,” he said, adding materials and contractors have all gotten more expensive.
“Paving is a huge cost now compared to what it would’ve been five to 10 years ago,” he said.
“There’s a lot of risks that municipalities face. But with good governance, they make a plan and they get after the infrastructure and away we go.”
The municipality’s project along the Highway 27-Main Avenue corridor, provided the stars align, is scheduled to wrap up before the annual Sundre Pro Rodeo, which takes place June 21-23.
“Our mandate is to be done before rodeo weekend, and it looks like we’ll be on par for that,” he said.
