Province lends a hand to regional water service

Provincial funding will relieve three municipalities of financial responsibility to set up a corporation that supports the creation of a regional water service.

Alberta Municipal Affairs approved $262,000 from the intermunicipal collaboration component of the 2014-’15 Alberta Communities Partnership program toward the Quad Regional Water Partnership (QRWP) to implement a regional water service in the Diamond Valley area.

The grant covers costs associated with developing the Sheep River Regional Utility Corporation, which will provide wholesale water to Black Diamond, Turner Valley, the MD of Foothills and, in the future, Longview.

“If we didn’t do this through a grant this would come through on the water rates,” said Black Diamond Mayor Sharlene Brown. “We needed the dollars to set up the corporation.”

Brown said the funding allows the QRWP to continue its work setting up bylaws and policies needed to run the corporation.

“We need to have governance to be able to provide water services,” she said. “When you’re structuring one of these corporations, not-for-profit under Alberta law, there’s a lot of laws and bylaws that need to be followed and policies to get up so we can operate.”

The board of directors that makes up the partnership currently operates the municipalities’ water supply, said Brown.

Once the corporation is complete, it will offer wholesale water to the Diamond Valley area.

Barry Williamson, chairman of the governance committee, said municipalities have been collectively paying for the governance and legal services, and that receiving the grant under the Alberta Community Partnership program means they can now get reimbursed for those costs.

“It also allows us to continue on the effort we’re in, even though the corporation has not been formally recognized by the ministry,” he said. “We’re working on the transition and need help doing that from a governance point of view.”

Williamson said the partners signed off on all documentation required to start the corporation and have put together an interim operating agreement.

“Until we are able to close on the sale of the assets across the membership we are not quite ready to start operating as a corporation,” he said. “We’re setting up an interim operating agreement and more work around third party services the corporation should be looking at beyond the municipalities we currently have memberships by.”

The board is giving the governance committee the go-ahead to continue working on behalf of the board until the corporation is operating on its own, which is expected to take place either this year or next.

Before the corporation is set up, Williamson said the upgrade and expansion of the water treatment plant must be complete, which will occur later this year.

Planning for the regional partnership began in 2012 and the project was accelerated after Black Diamond’s water treatment plant was destroyed in the 2013 flood, prompting the province to contribute more than $7 million to expand the facility so it can handle the extra demand from the Black Diamond area.

The corporation, once in operation, will be owned by the Towns of Black Diamond and Turner Valley at 45 per cent and 10 per cent by the MD of Foothills.