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Town approves phase one of storm sewer project in Industrial Park

Battleford town council is another step closer to completing a “proactive” build, which councillors hope will prevent future expensive problems.
town hall pic

Battleford town council is another step closer to completing a “proactive” build, which councillors hope will prevent future expensive problems.

The area near 5th Avenue and 13th Street, in which storm water drains into a nearby ravine, has been eroding. The ravine is about five to 10 metres from the road.

Earlier this year, Battleford Chief Administrative Officer John Enns-Wind proposed the town build a storm sewer system to drain water into the ravine, rather than letting it run off the surface into the ravine.

As opposed to letting water run over the surface and cut into the soil, Enns-Wind said, water would collect in storm grates.

“The point is to preserve the roads and infrastructure,” Enns-Wind said.

Fifth Avenue has a 20’’ main sewer running along its length, which Enns-Wind called in one of his reports “a critical piece of infrastructure that needs to be protected.”

At Monday’s meeting, council approved phase one of the project, at around $243,000. Sanburn Construction was the lowest bidder.

Council had budgeted $263,000 for the first phase of the project, according to a report by Enns-Wind.

The plan is to “wait and see how this phase goes,” Enns-Wind said at Monday’s meeting, and there may be a second phase. Enns-Wind said engineers are thinking the two phases “should mostly address the problem.”

Council has previously expressed hesitation toward the project.

Last Monday, Councillor Doug Laing said the spend is expensive, but “would be a small price to pay because [it could] get worse down the road.”

“This is one of those ones that I think people have a hard time justifying, even though there’s a lot of positive results [from] this project,” Mayor Ames Leslie said.

It’s not one of the town’s infrastructure projects that’s easily visible, but “we need to understand this is long-term infrastructure savings and protection of our pipes and river valley,” Leslie said.