The City of Yorkton will enter into an agreement with ISL Engineering to complete the west side drainage study at an estimated cost of $90,000.
Council made the unanimous decision to undertake the study at its regular meeting Monday.
“Over the past several years, major improvements have been made to the City of Yorkton’s drainage infrastructure, especially though the Dracup Avenue corridor, at a cost of millions of dollars,” René Richard - Director of Engineering and Asset Management with the City told Council as background to the request for the new study.
In addition, the City commissioned the Flood Mitigation Study – February 2017,“which investigated the 11 “problem areas” within the City and recommended upgrades. Since that report, the City has completed two of the recommended 13 upgrade projects,” he added.
“Millions of dollars have been spent and millions more will be spent as part of the long term plan.”
However, up until now, the City has not commissioned the study of the drainage for the west end of the municipality. This system includes drainage through the golf course, through HWY 52, through the Ravine Ecological Reserve, several rail crossings, Hopkins Lake (Jaycee Beach), HWY 16, and several other ditches and culverts around the Ball Road area, detailed Richard.
“Even though there are still millions of dollars in known drainage upgrades in the long term plan, Administration would like to commission the west side drainage study now for two specific reasons,” he said.
Firstly, there is a proposed development on Gladstone Avenue North. The City has been working with the proposed developer for several years now and design is underway. As part of the design process, the City’s storm, sanitary, and water systems are reviewed to ensure sufficient capacity for the development, detailed a report to Council.
“As part of this review, it was identified that the vacant land currently intercepts storm flows from neighboring properties and stores a tremendous amount of water during a rain storm,” said Richard. “. . . The proposed study would model and recommend options for how to appropriately divert or retain this excess water elsewhere without causing unanticipated negative impacts.”
Secondly, the City has recently acquired a parcel of land in this area that includes part of the west side drainage system. Administration would like to properly evaluate the amount of land required for proper drainage now and in the future before attempting to redevelop the remainder of this parcel, detailed the report.
“The cost estimate to have the west side study completed, including modeling, development of mitigation options, and budgetary cost estimates is $90,000 and will take approximately four months to complete,” said Richard.
The funding for this study would come from the Engineering Department Reserves.
