More than a decade of waiting is finally over, as the province has announced funding for the regional waterline.
“For two days I was doing the happy dance. I was ecstatic. We had contacted the deputy minister to make sure the project stayed on track and we finally got word that we had a letter of approval,” said Bonnyville Mayor Gene Sobolewski, adding it's been in the works since 2001.
“It's a huge relief. More importantly, it's something we can go to the public and say ‘finally'. That's been one major issue for 15 years, to improve the stability and quality of our water and source water.”
Through the Water for Life program, the provincial government is providing initial funding just shy of $6 million, or 83.08 per cent of the estimated project cost, for the “detailed design” of the regional waterline. However, Sobolewski noted that there will be additional funding on the way.
“It's actually about $7.2 million. The Water for Life is usually 90/10 so when the other top-up money is provided, the value of the engineering the province has given us is $7.2 million.”
It's been over two years since former minister Robin Campbell announced in February 2014 that Cold Lake would be an acceptable source for a regional waterline. Since then, local municipalities have been in an uphill battle trying to see some movement on the project.
Renewed hope came in November 2015, when the provincial NDP government announced an additional $100 million over five years in Water for Life funding. Officials in the area have had their fingers crossed since, but are finally able to breathe a sigh of relief.
“It's great to see the NDP government is putting through a lot of wastewater and fresh water projects throughout the province. This is an area that really needs safe drinking water,” said Cold Lake Mayor Craig Copeland.
The first indication of potential funding for the waterline came earlier this year, when the town was awarded an ACP grant to study the potential governance structure for a waterline, as well as the lake itself. In the amount of $350,000, with an additional $100,000 split three-ways between the municipalities, the grant will help bring in a consultant to look at what's best for the region when it comes to who should run it.
It will also fund a study of the lake itself to verify its sustainability as a regional water source and any ensure the project won't be disrupting any ecosystems.
The study of the lake will be conducted simultaneously with the designs of the waterline, in order to keep the project moving forward.
“That study is very congruent with the total process of the water study on the lake – we're probably going to need to improve the water license on the lake. It's absolutely necessary to have both of them going at the same time, because it's going to be very efficient,” explained Sobolewski. “If there are conditions or things we need to do, we're going to instruct the consultant and incorporate that into the designs.”
However, the exact details of what the Water for Life funding entails are yet to be ironed out – something the Cold Lake Regional Utilities Commission will be working on in the coming weeks.
“The contents of what we got advised is that this money we got is for design purposes. In the next couple of months we'll sort out some of those details and questions we still have,” said Kevin Nagoya, City of Cold Lake CAO.
Copeland added, “Cold Lake is being tapped as the reservoir all the way down to Kehewin. We'll see where the first phase of this money goes. That hasn't been flushed out yet, who's included in the design drawings.”
According to Sobolewski, he expects the design portion to take between 12 and 18 months, before they can then move into construction. The pipeline itself may take about six to eight months to build, but there could also be improvements needed to the intake and water treatment plant.
“Once the engineering is done, that's when we're going to make decisions on the most cost-effective methodology because one of our partners on this is going to be the province. We're going to be working collaboratively and cooperatively to arrive at the best decisions for our region.”
Sobolewski added, “Likely the funding will be issued in chunks of money. Once we have a good idea in terms of he cost, we'll be hoping that the requisite funding that's going to be necessary to move the project will then be advanced.”
He noted that this week a draft request for proposal for a consultant is going to be circulated to all of the partners before it goes out. Following that, they will be looking at developing a request for proposal for the engineering of the waterline to send out. Due to the extent of the waterline project, it is expected to take at least a couple months before a company is hired to do the design and engineering.
