City hall, councillor differ on length of time to replace all cast iron pipes

City administration and Coun. Brian Swanson have differing views on how long it will take to replace all the cast iron water pipes in Moose Jaw, with administration saying 20 years and Swanson saying 35 years.

City administration presented the second-quarter report to city council during its Aug. 12 regular meeting. The report provided a summary of the activities of each department from April to June. Council voted 6-1 to receive the report; Swanson was opposed.

In the report from the engineering department, a summary was provided of how much money had been spent on phase 4 of the water main replacement and relining programs.

The annual budget for the cast iron water main replacement and relining program is $6.5 million, engineering manager Josh Mickleborough told Coun. Heather Eby. Not all of that will be spent this year. About $300,000 will be carried over to next year due to tenders for the relining program coming in under budget.

If that $300,000 had been spent this year, between 120 metres and 150 metres would have been replaced.

The report indicates that at the end of the second quarter more than $4.6 million had been spent on phase 4, while $633,890 had been spent on relining, for a total of $5.28 million. This means 1,840 metres of cast iron pipes have been replaced and 420 metres of water mains had been relined, or 2,260 metres in total. Swanson was concerned that only 2,200 metres of pipe would be replaced or relined this year considering the full budget was not being spent.

“And it continues to be reported in all our documents that we have a 20-year program to replace 80,000 metres of cast iron water line,” he continued. “The math’s pretty simple: that requires 4,000 metres a year. We haven’t come close to (that) yet … . Realistically we’re looking at a 35year program.”

The amount of money spent this year means it costs about $2,000/metre to replace these pipes, said Swanson. The last time he raised this issue, it had cost $1,800 a metre.

This means, in four years the municipality will have replaced 10,000 metres of cast iron pipes instead of 16,000 metres, leaving 70,000 metres left to be replaced at $168 million, he continued. This itself has increased by $42 million from when the project started.

“Strategic plans and all that: phooey as far as I’m concerned … ,” added Swanson. “We have got to get our priorities better fixed.”

The federal and provincial governments have provided funding recently for water projects, said city manager Jim Puffalt. Moose Jaw received additional funding through the federal Gas Tax Fund, so it spent $1.17 million on the east feeder mains project and $500,000 on the cast iron replacement program.

There will be an additional $8 million in federal funding coming next year that could be redirected to water infrastructure projects, but administration will have to determine how much replacement can be realistically achieved, he continued. “We are making some progress. We will bring on an additional construction crew. There is a lot of work to do on that one, but we are much closer to that required number,” he added. “We want to ensure that we are meeting it in 20 years. Hopefully next year … we’ll be able to make a lot more progress.”

Initial budgetary documents indicated it would cost about $1,850 per linear metre to replace four kilometres of cast iron pipes, said Mickleborough. However, that number is expected to increase. Administration is monitoring inflationary pressures on the budget and has not seen them yet but believes it could happen soon. Jason G. Antonio - Moose Jaw Express