Four municipalities in the foothills region signed a key document last week signaling their commitment to work together on a regional water partnership.
Representatives from the Towns of Turner Valley and Black Diamond, the Village of Longview and the MD of Foothills signed a memorandum of understanding on the Quad Regional Water Partnership on Jan. 26 in Turner Valley. It was the first important step in what is expected to be a lengthy joint project aiming to lessen the burden of maintaining water and sewer infrastructure amongst the participating municipalities.
“This is a milestone for every one of the municipalities,” said Turner Valley Mayor Kelly Tuck. “I’m very pleased.”
Larry Spilak, reeve for the MD of Foothills, described the signing of the memorandum as “groundbreaking.”
“Water and sewer are essential services to our residents, and wherever possible, the public sector should be regulating costs and expenditures to provide these services that have been increasing over the years,” Spilak said.
Spilak said a partnership with neighbouring municipalities is key in reducing water and sewer infrastructure costs.
“(Partnerships like this one afford us) efficiency in numbers that can offset some of these costs,” he said. “There’s only one taxpayer, so we need to utilize those dollars as best as possible.”
Longview Mayor Ivor McCorquindale, agreed it is important for small municipalities to be a part of larger regional partnerships.
“We cannot afford, as a small municipality, to be left out of partnerships,” McCorquindale said. “Right now, Longview doesn’t have a significant problem with water, but we have to form these partnerships to look into the future… If you are left out of the initial stages, it’s very difficult to get back into the picture and be part of the solution to these infrastructure problems.”
Next on the table is finalizing the details of how the four municipalities will work together, said Black Diamond Mayor Sharlene Brown.
“We will continue our meetings to establish a governance model on how we can all work cooperatively to share water, and to make that as sustainable a resource as we can make it,” Brown said.
Tuck added, “We’re getting to the point now where we actually have a signed and sealed document, so we can start moving forward looking at what the whole partnership could look like.”
Urban Systems, a consulting firm specializing in providing professional expertise in the fields of civil engineering, community planning and landscape architecture to local governments, is currently putting together options for the partnership’s governance model, Tuck said.
The consulting firm will present the scenarios to the partnership at a meeting next month.
Once a governance model is finalized, the Quad Regional Water Partnership will apply for funding from the Alberta Environment’s Water for Life program to begin construction on the expansion of the Turner Valley water treatment plant, the initial step in the partnership.
