WEYBURN – The City of Weyburn will undertake an engineering assessment of their storm sewer system and lift station, after two heavy rains this spring overwhelmed the system on May 12-13, and again on June 20-21.
Council approved using a fund of $20,000 originally earmarked for watermain inspections to hire an engineering firm to make the assessment. The discussion came only a few hours before a thunderstorm brought more rain to the city on Monday night.
Director of engineering Jennifer Wilkinson explained that the first storm on May 12 brought 60 mm of rain, and the storm on June 20 brought another 95 mm of rain, with problems caused to the city’s facilities both times.
The excess rain in May caused all four submersible pumps to be switched into 100-per-cent operation, but even with the lift station running at full capacity, the incoming storm water entered the wastewater system faster than it could be pumped out to the lagoon. This caused the trunk sewer line along Fifth Street up to Fifth Avenue North, and multiple residential, commercial and recreational facilities had damages from flooding and sewer backups.
In the June storm, utilities crews switched the lift station over to a diesel pump and brought in a couple of vacuum tank trucks to increase the flow rate out to the lagoon, but again they couldn’t keep up.
Residents were asked to reduce water consumption, and to discharge sump pumps outside instead of into the sewer, but the water levels remained at high alarm levels for 12.5 hours, causing backflow conditions at the diversion lagoon. The City took the decision to discharge directly into the Souris River for a time until water levels subsided.
As a result of these two heavy rains, the City wants an assessment done on what upgrades or expansion needs to be done to increase storage capacity and to eliminate the need for bypassing to the river.
Asked if there will be a problem in diverting the funds originally set for watermain inspections, Wilkinson said the technology they thought would work is not going to be sufficient to do the inspections, so it won’t hurt any programs to use this money for hiring an engineering firm.
She added this assessment of the city’s facilities can be done this year so planning can be done for 2023 for any upgrades or expansion work that might be deemed necessary.
• In other council business, council approved a paving contract for a paved pathway as part of the Tatagwa Parkway trail.
The Parks Department had constructed a new walking path in 2021 in a green space east of Coteau Avenue. The Leisure Services department received a $90,000 grant through the Canada Community Revitalization Fund to complete 1,982.5 square metres of asphalt paving on the new pathway, which will connect to the northeast loop of the path from Fifth Avenue down to Highway 13/First Avenue.
The paving contract was awarded to Genco Asphalt in the amount of $80,475, and the paving is to be completed by no later than Sept. 30.
Asked if there are future plans to do a complete loop around the city with the Tatagwa Parkway, and Andrew Crowe, director of leisure services, said this will bring the pathways to about 90 km altogether, with the majority of it paved.
He said they are several years from completely encircling the city, but it is in the master plan to do so in the coming years.
