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Budget 2023: New sewage lift station will ensure community can continue growing

During its Dec. 5 budget meeting, city council voted unanimously to authorize engineering services to issue and award a tender for the construction of the Crescent View lift station.
city-hall-clock-tower-crop
(file photo)

The engineering department will soon issue tenders for constructing a new $26.6-million Crescent View wastewater lift station, an important piece of infrastructure that will enable the community to continue growing. 

During its Dec. 5 budget meeting, city council voted unanimously to authorize engineering services to issue and award a tender for the construction of the lift station and associated infrastructure, with funding of $7,455,000, $9.6 million and $9.6 million phased in from 2023, 2024 and 2025.

“Certainly, it is a big project … . The beauty of what we’re proposing here is that this replacement will take us up to a population of 45,000,” said city manager Jim Puffalt. “And as you know, we’re very much in a growth spurt right now.”

This project is “desperately needed” to ensure Moose Jaw can continue to grow and prosper, he added. Without it, the municipality is asking for trouble with potential floods and constriction on growth.

“It (the project cost) is a big number,” observed Coun. Jamey Logan. 

“This is one of those things that is absolutely essential to our city,” said Coun. Crystal Froese. 

“I have toured this lift station and it is past its due date. It kind of reminds me of when I first toured the reservoir, and I was kind of nervous when I was in that building as well,” she added. “So now we have a much more updated, modern facility that will last us years and years.”

City hall retained engineering firm AECOM Canada Ltd. in August 2021 to help replace the wastewater lift station, located at the east end of Manitoba Street East adjacent to the Moose Jaw Creek, the budget report explained. The city built the life station in 1961 and last upgraded it in 1991. 

“The city-wide wastewater collection system is conveyed to this station and then pumped to a grit building at the headworks of the city’s wastewater treatment plant (WWTP),” the report noted.

The lift station is below the required capacity to handle water surcharges, which leads to flooding of the grinder room during major rainstorms while it is past its life expectancy, requires extensive and expensive repairs, is incorrectly configured for grit removal after pumping and is restricting the city’s growth, continued the report.

AECOM has recommended replacing the lift station to function as a WWTP headworks building by providing full-flow screening and grit removal. The main factors influencing design are pumping capacity, screening, grit removal and sewage receiving location, practical considerations with retrofitting an existing building or constructing a new one, and regulatory requirements.
 
The engineering department will issue the tender next year and start construction immediately because the design is ready, said director Bevan Harlton. It will also award the tender regardless of whether it has federal funding; the project should be finished by 2026. 

Pre-pandemic, the federal government usually informed city hall within three to six months about whether its funding applications were successful, Harlton continued. The department is still waiting to hear back about a submission submitted in July, so there is a risk with the project’s funding. 

City hall hopes Ottawa will fund at least $24 million to the project. 

The new lift station will be constructed at the same location as the old one, while the old one will be decommissioned and demolished, he added.

The next budget meeting is Wednesday, Dec. 7, while the next council meeting is Monday, Dec. 12. 

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