In recent weeks Yorkton Council has heard a series of presentations from Associated Engineering (AE) on its current Asset Management Project.
Over the series of presentations two things have become clear, the first being that Yorkton Council has shown significant leadership in initiating the process which will establish benchmarks for the City in terms of its extensive infrastructure holdings.
While Councils have traditionally been reactive to infrastructure needs, repairing streets and waterlines as they deteriorate to the point of forcing work, it is not necessarily the most prudent way of doing things.
Having a plan based on a detailed asset inventory which provides insights into things such as life expectancy and importance to service would seem a wiser way to look at things.
At a recent meeting of Council David Watt, Manager Asset Program with AE said in terms of condition, there are a number of factors that come into play including public expectation when looking at City-owned facilities. For example there is an expectation of safe water from the tap 24/7.
"There's very low tolerance for failure there," he said, adding if a recreation facility has to close for a day "people can generally tolerate that."
When it comes to issues within buildings, Watt said a rule of thumb is that "20 per cent of infrastructure causes 80 per cent of the problems." He added the next phase of the process will provide a more detailed look at that 20 per cent.
The review gives the City a look at where the 20 per cent of problems is likely to come from.
While the information will be critical to long term planning, it also shows immediate deficiencies the City will need to begin addressing immediately.
In terms of facility priorities, Watt said dealing with deficiencies in regards to Occupational Health and Safety violations are a main priority. He said they found 129 such incidents which will require approximately $2 million to address.
In addition is it expected another $2 million will be needed to address areas in poor condition with a high consequence of failure.
The same situation exists with water and sewer lines explained Jason Horner, manager infrastructure group AE Saskatchewan at the Monday meeting of Council.
As it stands, based on the 75-year life expectancy of lines there is also a backlog in the city, said Horner. He said it would require $7.5 million to replace wastewater lines older than 75 years, $3.9 million for water lines, and $136,000 for storm water lines.
Those sort of investment dollars will require some interesting decisions by Council moving forward, and longer term for the public which may have to lower service expectations or face massive tax increases to cover costs.
While those decisions will be difficult, they are critical to the future of the city, and can now at least be made based on the best information regarding the state of City assets available.
