“It’s shaping up to be a very busy year,” says Denny Garratt, Reeve of the Municipal District of Lesser Slave River. “It would be nice if we only had a couple of major projects. But growth pressure has forced us into looking at more than a couple of priority items.”
Such as?
The extension of the wastewater collection system in the south shore to Nine Mile Point is a big one. The M.D. is committed to finishing it of, but depends largely on funding from higher levels of government, as it does with most of its large projects.
The uncertainty isn’t helpful, Garratt concedes.
“It’s a real shell game with the budget,” he says. “It’s becoming harder to plan.”
The actual project is some time off, but 2008 will see a study done on the feasibility of providing water from Canyon Creek to the west and also across the lake to Marten Beach and the provincial park campground. The $28,000 study “has been approved,” Garratt says.
Further, upgrades in the electronic data-gathering line have been approved for the water and wastewater plants at Flatbush, Smith and Canyon Creek.
The biggest project by far is the wastewater extension through Widewater and Wagner – a lot rides on its completion. But how much provincial help the MD can expect for the multi-million dollar project – and when – is far from certain.
“The uncertainty is not good,” Garratt says. “It kills you. It’s a poor way of doing business.”
There’s more than just water and sewer, of course.
“There’s much more work to be done on the old Smith highway,” Garratt says. “Which we will be doing – another seven to 10 kilometres of rebuilding.”
The hamlet of Smith should also get a new wastewater lagoon and ‘water point’ this year. The demand is there, Garratt says, and it should go ahead.
Something entirely new for the M.D. this year will be in the area of seeking new industry for the Mitsue Industrial Park. “We own a lot of land,” says Garratt. “We’re going to try our damndest to get secondary industry there.”
Expanding the tax base is the goal. The cost of providing services and infrastructure keeps going up, and council doesn’t want to see the burden going too much on the shoulders of residents.
“We don’t want to tax people out of their homes,” Garratt says. “Therefore it’s incumbent upon us to strengthen our industrial tax base. We’re going to put up some ‘for sale’ signs.”
Meanwhile, improving the core services is a goal for 2008. Garratt says the M.D. staff is doing a pretty good job in road maintenance from what he can tell, but it can always be refined. Snowplowing so far this winter is going pretty well. “Right now in 2½ days we’ve got our whole M.D. accessible and there’s something to be said for that because we’ve got a lot of roads!”
In planning and development, council faces a challenge in the matter of zoning. There’s a proposal before council about a country residential subdivision for which the current land use by-law doesn’t seem to provide for. Council must see what it can do to accommodate the developer’s wishes, without creating problems elsewhere.
“You don’t want to stymie any growth,” Garratt says. “(If) you have to force a round peg into a square hole, you have to redesign the hole.”

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