M.D. approves study on extending waterline to Cherry Grove

The M.D. of Bonnyville will be looking into how feasible it would be to bring Cold Lake water to Cherry Grove by voting to fund a study that will determine how to connect the hamlet to the regional waterline.

“We’re gonna have a company go out there, and they’re gonna look at what the average cost to get a waterline out there, and whether or not there’s the demand from residents,” said Reeve Greg Sawchuk on The Morning After.

“Cherry Grove had been part of a study that was done a few years ago, but it’s not set up like a typical hamlet, which is more like a small village. As soon as you get into larger acreage your cost for capital infrastructure for each resident increases, so that’s gonna be something that council will have to weigh out.”

The M.D. had originally considered supplying Cherry Grove with Cold Lake water through an extension of the 10 inch potable waterline that runs between Cold Lake and Ardmore, which in the future could have provided water to La Corey and Therien as part of the push to improve water distribution throughout the municipality.

The feasibility study contract was awarded to CIMA for $28,500.

In addition to the study, council also approved allocating $2,015,000 from cashflow reserves in the event the provincial government declines to fund the recent project cost overages on the Regional Waterline, which are approximately $10 million.

Council also approved accepting the Bonnyville Regional Water Services Commission’s request to have the M.D. provide operational services for the Regional Waterline up to the Town of Bonnyville’s border.

This will require one full-time Infrastructure Services employee to assist with this additional workload.

According to the Bonnyville mayor Gene Sobolewski, the regional waterline should be complete somewhere between mid-to-late September.

“As I understand it, we’ve got a bit of a setback — there’s a stretch a pipe that was underneath a wetland that’s part of a critical push that failed after a test. You can’t just go into that wetland and repair or excavate the pipe, so you have to push another through,” said Sobolewski on The Morning After.

“And of course before we do the disturbances and things like that, we have to provide the requisite notices and things like that, but hopefully we don’t have any more setbacks.

“I think that was the last section of pipe that they needed to test.”