The Primary Sanitary Sewer Trunk Upgrade project remains in the planning stages. (File photo/battlefordsNOW Staff)

By Angela Brown

In the chambers

City receives update on Primary Sanitary Sewer Trunk Upgrade project plans

May 12, 2020 | 3:41 PM

The engineering consultants for North Battleford’s Primary Sanitary Sewer Trunk Upgrade project in the planning stages gave an update at council’s meeting Monday.

North Battleford council approved a recommendation from the consultants for a force-main design for the project. It is expected to provide a significant cost savings, estimated at about $1 million, in the long term compared to the alternative gravity line option.

“The decision was to proceed as a force-main, based on the advice of our engineering consultants,” Mayor Ryan Bater said. “They indicated that this should reduce costs, not just initially but also over time. It will increase flexibility into the future, so council approved that direction… The decision was just about what kind of main it will be. So it will be a pressurized system.”

Since the ongoing project is cost-shared, the provincial and federal levels of government will be need to consent to the consultants’ recommendation for the force-main system design proposed.

The federal and provincial governments are each contributing $4,533,333, for a total of about two-thirds of the funding of the roughly $14 million project.

BODY-WORM CAMERAS

RCMP begins nationwide rollout of body cameras for frontline officers

15h ago

Inflation

Rent inflation to slow in the next few years, Desjardins predicts

21h ago

North West U15 AA Sharks

AA Sharks continue success with tournament win in Regina

22h ago

Sean Bayer of KGS Group – the project managers on the sanitary sewer twinning project, and Ryan King of AECOM Canada Ltd. gave council an update on the initiative’s progress.

King, a design engineer for the project, said one of the benefits of the force- main pressure-pipe construction is that it allows flexibility in the pipe route.

The pipe also won’t have to be set as deep in the ground.

“So basically we achieve frost protection which is [about] 10-feet deep like a water main, and we don’t rely on gravity where we have to get sometimes 20 or 25, even approaching 30-feet deep, which is very costly,” King said.

King said he is focused on keeping the project within budget.

The project that is still in the planning stage isn’t expected to go to tender until 2021. It is anticipated the work would wrap up by 2023.

King said the system will run all the way from the hill-side where the old wastewater treatment plant is located, across the city, 8.5 kilometres away to the new wastewater treatment plant, although the exact route has not been determined yet.

–

angela.brown@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @battlefordsnow