Town of Sundre officials were unsuccessful in their bid for a $200,000 from the Alberta Flood Recovery Erosion Control Program to construct a 100-mm gas line that would service the residents and businesses on the east side of Sundre.
An existing gas line is located under the Highway 27 bridge over the Red Deer River, but officials say if another flood comes through town, the line could be damaged.
“We were not approved for it. Very disappointing,” Dave Dubauskas, the town's chief administrative officer, told the Round Up.
However, the municipality may qualify to apply for the project under a new provincial flood mitigation grant program that was launched on June 9, called the Alberta Community Resilience Program.
Dubauskas said town officials will be looking at that this summer.
“I don't know why it wasn't approved but I kind of got a sense of what the province was looking for – so in the case of the berm, that was a regional cooperative issue and they like it when municipalities cooperate, and give money accordingly,” he explained. “And the other thing I heard is that it was over subscribed, that there were a lot of grant moneys requested.”
During the flood in 2013, the gas main sustained significant damage due to the amount of debris flowing under the bridge, he said.
A section of the gas main was dislodged, because one of the pipe supports for it was completely torn off the bridge, leaving the gas main hanging underneath.
“Had the gas main severed or broke, the results could have been a gas leak, fire or explosion causing potential damage to the only bridge in Sundre,” Dubauskas said in a letter requesting the funding earlier this year.
“Additionally, a leak would cause loss of gas supply to residents on the west side in the vicinity of the bridge due to low pressure.
“The potential population without gas in the event of this type of occurrence would be in the order of 1,375.”
The gas line is the only service to the east side of town, so if flow in it was disrupted, approximately 50 residential homes, a trailer park consisting of about 25 permanent trailers, about 30 businesses and Tall Timber Leisure Park would be without gas service.
Officials proposed that the gas servicing to the east side be provided from the east side. This would allow for the gas line under the bridge to be shut off during a flood event, without impacting east side residents, he said.
“Presently the Foothills Gas Co-op has an existing gas main on the east side of Sundre that they are willing to allow the town to connect to such that this servicing can be provided.”
He said it is an important project for the community and he is hopeful the municipality will receive funding for it.
“Every system should have more than one point. So that's with water systems and gas systems, you want more than one access in case one of the access breaks then you have two accesses,” he said. “So right now we have an access to the east side and this is just being proactive to getting another access from the east right from Foothills. That could help us in many ways depending on where the gas line broke but primarily it's the east side that we're focussed on.”
Mayor Terry Leslie said he is concerned that the project was not approved.
“I'm concerned that we need to do something to make sure that those residents on the east side aren't left without gas service and we'll be looking into making sure that happens,” said Leslie.
“For the gas system, that's a priority and it's a matter of taking any moneys that we may have in reserves and putting the project up to move ahead.”
He said the gas line situation has been a concern for town officials for several years, but it was brought to the forefront after last year's flood.
“Because we don't have the same flood waters that we had in 2013 that system could continue to operate, but we do want to put plans in place to make sure that if there ever was a need to shut down gas for a safety reason then we need some redundancy protection for those folks on the east side.”
