ESTERHAZY — It’s the season for spring runoff, and some of those annual flows have been getting close to the town landfill. A landowner north of the site in question needed to drain their land, but the resulting path of least resistance sought by the water raised concerns.
“For whatever reason, we ended up with the water coming in very, very close proximity to our dump,” explained Mayor Grant Forster. “Our concern is that this is just regular drainage. If we get a year of huge snow or big rain or something—or just natural erosion—we’re going to end up with this water draining through our dump, potentially getting contaminated and then contaminating everything downstream. We don’t want to be responsible for that. We’re the unwilling victim of them changing the drainage.”
The town contacted SaskWater, who in turn met with the landowner, ultimately asking to allow for the rising waters to pass.
“Without a doubt, the town is not going to be interested to engage in any type of drainage outside of the town that’s going to cause issues to the operation of our landfill,” said Andrew Hickey, the town’s waterworks consultant.
He was seeking more background on the issue from council to hold further discussion with the Water Security Agency and the Ministry of Environment.
“They start flooding off that quarter section, just to the east, and the culverts on the RM road are not big enough, so they have the potential to flood our landfill,” explained councillor Vern Petracek. “The environmental impact that will be on it would be phenomenal.”
Signing off to allow the flow would indicate the town is responsible for water safety downstream.
“So if it happens, that we contaminate the water source going towards the valley, who’s liable?” Petracek asked.
One alternative would be diverting the runoff to the east side of the landfill where more area exists to handle the capacity.
Hickey will continue discussions with the aforementioned entities, stressing the importance of an alternate solution and that council is not interested in accepting the increased potential for flooding in the landfill.
Town eyeing new water meters
A new water meter system has council seriously considering a major upgrade. The new meters would utilize equipment and technology from Metercorp, who specialize in smart metering solutions for municipalities.
Forster noted council had conversations with Metercorp last year during the SUMA convention, with follow-up conversations happening more recently.
“Over the last couple of months, we’ve had a couple of discussions with them whereby they made a proposal to us where they will come in and change all of our meters for us and essentially manage the system,” Forster said.
Everything from installation, meter reading and even billing would be handled by Metercorp through digital metering.
“They’re going to pay for everything. They’re going to maintain it for 20 years and they’ll take a percentage of every water meter bill that’s sent out for the next 20 years,” Hickey told council. “I think it’s a great idea for a community of this size, I think the technology is very neat and it’s well used.”
Antennas would be installed on tall structures such as the water tower and flour mill, which would collect and then feed data back to the main system—likely based at the Town Office—and then relayed to Metercorp. Forster estimates such a system would likely run $1.8 to $2 million to establish from scratch, making the 20-year payment plan with Metercorp far more enticing.
“It’s a pretty good deal, from the surface anyway, without having had the chance to look through it all to see what it’s all about,” Forster said, adding the cost to the town would be a percentage of water usage. “We’re very excited about it, and it should, in the end, be a cost-saving for the town, but it will also be a cost-saving for a lot of users. The way that this system will operate is we’ll be able to bill on actual usage as opposed to billing on estimates.”
Hickey pointed to the accuracy and real-time feedback as especially useful.
“The potential to detect water leaks or breaks before them surfacing is going to save a ton of money,” he said. “We can pinpoint a leak before it becomes apparent.”
The digital water meters will also mean town staff no longer need to physically read and catalogue data.
“We send a couple of guys around, and it takes them upwards of two weeks to go to every house and then we have to go back three and four times sometimes to get a reading,” Forster explained.
All those figures are then manually inputted once gathered.
“That takes a huge weight off that office as well,” said CAO Tammy MacDonald.
Further discussion between the town and Metercorp will take place in the coming days and again at the coming SUMA convention in Regina next month before any decisions are made.
Town applying for speed sign grant
Town staff are composing a grant application for signage, seeking clarification from council as to their preference. Two key areas have been targeted as prone to drivers speeding and the signs are one way to reduce that habit. Staff narrowed the options down to either side of the highway coming into town or in the school zone. The high-tech signs also collect information uploaded to iCloud, providing useful and timely data.
“It tells you how fast people are going, how many vehicles are passing by, all the data,” said Planning & Economic Development Director Crystal Sabo. “I did talk to the RCMP also just to have suggestions of what else we can do, and they did say the radar signs significantly lower the speed. They do help.”
Ultimately, council motioned in favour of placing the signs on the highway with one councillor pointing to another practical use for the collected data.
“I like the highway ones, too,” Councillor Randy Bot agreed. “Even if we wanted a new business to come into town or something then we could show the data of how many people drive through town.”
The SGI Provincial Traffic Safety Grant provides up to $100,000 per location to increase traffic safety awareness. The program itself began in 2019, making use of funds collected from photo speed enforcement tickets.
“We’ve taken advantage of this before with some other speed signs, and it’s an ongoing, continuing program,” Forster noted.
Waste collection event planned
The Town received a request from GFL Environmental to hold a waste collection event in Esterhazy. As MacDonald explained to council, GFL would optimally like to set up in the parking lot at the arena, providing an education session as part of the event.
‘I’m good with GFL wanting to come in because they’re local,” Petracek said.
Regional park needs mower
A request to invest in a new mower came before council as the Esterhazy Regional Park & Campground has its eyes on a Toro GreensMaster unit, which will be particularly useful in keeping the golf course in top shape.
“We are in desperate need of a new greens mower,” said Councillor Tenille Flick, who brought the request forward. “That is probably our number one complaint about at our golf course, is not the shape of our greens, but the mowing of them.”
Through some research by the park board, they found a piece of equipment for $81,000.
“We were wondering if the town would consider providing us a loan for the greens mower,” Flick said. “It is seven per cent interest to go with the financing company, so we thought if we could make some sort of arrangement with the town, we would greatly appreciate it because I think it would make a big difference for our course.”
She referenced examples of available cash such as hole sponsorships and an unexpected $10,000 in revenue that could assist in paying off the loan quicker.
“We do have user groups that put all their revenue back into the golf course,” she said, adding that the board is also focused on running the kitchen, bar and pro shop themselves this year.
“I have absolutely no problem with that,” said Bot. “The Regional Park does a lot for the community and we don’t have to do anything. So to help them out with a loan, knowing that we’re going to get the money back, it’s a no-brainer.”
Mayor GrantForster and others around the table also voiced their support.
“From my perspective, it makes sense as well,” he said. “The Regional Park assets are ours, whether we want to say that out loud or not, they belong to the town. So we need to support this. That’s that’s my take on it.”
MacDonald also referenced historical agreements involving the park as 小蓝视频 quite positive.
“If we go on past practices, we’ve done this before for the Regional Park to help them out, and there were no issues, no problems,” she said.
A motion supporting the loan received unanimous agreement from council with MacDonald to draft an agreement between the parties.
Back lane to become one-way
A request to review a blind corner exiting onto Main Street near the Pharmasave came before council.
‘We’ve directed Crystal (Sabo) to investigate turning the alley into one way whereas you wouldn’t be able to turn onto Main Street from the alley,” Forster explained. “You could turn off of Main Street onto the alley, but you wouldn’t be able to turn onto Main Street from it.”
