Crews are working long hours to install sewer lines throughout Canyon Creek and say the job will be done by the end of November. That part of the job includes installing main lines and connectors to each individual property says George Snider, director of operations for the Municipal District of Lesser Slave River.
While that’s happening, other manufacturers crews in Toronto, Edmonton and New York are assembling the components of a wastewater treatment system, and still others are constructing the building that’ll eventually house the treatment plant.
Snider says he expects to commission the system sometime early next summer.
“The contract is to have all the services in place to the 140 residences in Canyon Creek” by the beginning of December, he says. That means every home will have its own tank with an interior grinder pump attached to its current sewer system. When they’re ready to put the system into operation, crews will simply close the valve from the current system at each property, and open one attached to the new, effectively shifting each to the new system. That will use low pressure technology to transfer sewage to the treatment facility located just west of the western boundary of Canyon Creek.
The M.D. of Lesser Slave River is installing some ‘cutting edge’ technology that’ll very likely win it environmental awards, says Snider.
Those unfortunately don’t carry any cash value, but the director hopes they will provide some incentive for the environmentally-aware province to offer grants to further help ease the cost of protecting the Southshore region and the nearby Lesser Slave Lake.
The new system is a success story of mammoth proportions. But it’s a story that could well take years to complete, Snider admits. In short, the M.D. has had to defer its plans to tie the hamlets of Widewater and Wagner into the system in two to five years.
“It all depends on the direction the new council wishes to pursue,” he says.
In fact planners expected the project would cost upwards of $12 million. But since it began planning and received the first estimates in 2000, project costs have soared. And when M.D. officials opened the project tenders earlier this summer, they discovered it’ll cost as much as $18 million to complete the project.
Snider says he notified the federal and provincial environment departments – which are each paying one third of the project – of the increases earlier this summer, and received permission to stage construction of the project. To make it viable, components of the waste water treatment facility were deferred. None are integral to the process, he explains, but can be added at a later date to reduce operating costs.
But unless the new council decides to find new dollars or new ways to raise them, the Widewater and Wagner portions of the project could be delayed as many as three years.
But this fall, Snider says municipal officials will meet with property owners of each Canyon Creek residence to talk about line and equipment installation – and how property owners can pay for their part in the project.
Every property will face a different price tag, he says, and that’ll depend on the distance between the main line and the respective homes. And prices could also vary, depending on the type of soil on the property.
Crews have already installed tanks at three test sites to test their installation estimates. Snider says it appears that this approach should result in savings for property owners and the M.D.
The process saw them boring horizontal holes and pushing through the two-inch pipes to connect the septic tank to the sewer mains. The process was chosen to disturb as little of property owners’ yards as possible, he says, “but there will be some excavation to install the tank and connections to the current sewer systems.” That said, however, Snider added that test site property owners were shocked how quickly the work was completed.
“But we will offer the homeowners options so that the system can be installed as inexpensively as possible,” he says, “but it’s still going to cost.”
That’s why the M.D. is offering to let homeowners pay either outright, or in installments over the next 20 years.
“We’ll also give them three options on installation, with contractors performing varying degrees of work.
By the time contractors are ready to ‘throw the switch’ that’ll put Canyon Creek’s new system into operation the municipality will have spent roughly $12 million. It’ll cost another $5.3 million to add Widewater and Wagner onto the same system, he says, with about $2.5 million coming from property owners.
But the coffers are essentially empty, says Snider. And it’ll be up to the new council to find innovative ways to generate funds and complete the project over the next two to three years.
Snider says he hopes the province will come up with some new grant dollars, and pave the way for other Alberta communities that face similar dilemmas.

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