Irrigation committee holds info session

Shannon LeClair

Times Reporter

 

The irrigation committee held an information session for interested residents at the Civic Centre on Feb. 16. The purpose of the session was to outline what the committee has been working on over the past six months and what their recommendations are. Approximately 60 people gathered to hear what the committee had to say. 

“I was really overjoyed at the people’s interest,” said Christine Mitzner, chairperson for the committee.  

“We got a lot of people asking questions and voicing their concerns.”

She said one resident found out he used over 60 cubic metres of water to water his lawn and the cost of the sewer charge would have been more than irrigation. 

Strathmore resident Rob Pirie attended the meeting and is in favour of bringing irrigation back. “I thought the meeting went very well. I thought it was very informative,” said Pirie. 

“Obviously the committee has done a lot of research and it doesn’t seem to agree with Town administration,” said Brian Code, who also attended the meeting.

“From my perspective, once I boiled it all down it’s almost like they (the town) have eliminated the irrigation system for irrigation users to subsidize the sewage system.”

“Personally, the irrigation water has huge advantages over the regular water system in terms of water temperature, water quality, the lack of chemicals, the non-poisoning of the environment. There’s an endless list of reasons why irrigation makes sense.”

Dwight Stanford, Chief Administrative Officer, CAO, for the town said some things presented to the public at the meeting weren’t true. Even though council was not able to attend, there were still members of administration there. The committee has said administration is opposed to reopening the irrigation, which Stanford said they have never alluded to. Stanford said over the years there was not a lot of money put into upgrading the system. The committee has said the Town let the system deteriorate intentionally.

“We’ve continued to do repairs on it every year, and EPCOR has been doing it for us for quite a few years and they fix (it) whenever there’s a break,” said Stanford.

“We have not budgeted to put money to upgrade the lines, it’s just been that we’ve had EPCOR fix them, and repair and keep things going. The town supports irrigation as long as the citizens without irrigation don’t have to subsidize the irrigation users.”

One of the disagreements involves the parks; some are watered with city water, some with canal water. Stanford said some are not even irrigated. He said the group’s philosophy is that 50 per cent of the canal water usage is the Town’s responsibility, and the town is saying their portion should be less, because some of the bigger parks aren’t watered with canal water. Stanford said town employees have been looking into the numbers and think their portion should be approximately 25 per cent. Stanford gave an example, if irrigation were going to cost $80,000 just to keep going, then maybe the town should pay for 25 per cent. The committee wants to see them pay half, which Stanford said would mean residents without irrigation would be subsidizing, and the town has concerns about it. 

“The committee has been very diligent and they have met almost weekly gathering information, preparing their report,” said Stanford.

“What we’re looking for now from the irrigation committee is a final report to council on what they recommend and then council will make a decision.”

“If council wants it we certainly can,” said Bob Carver, committee member, about bringing their recommendations to council.

“We thought based on that meeting that we might want to have one other before we do it.”

The next meeting is in two weeks. Originally the committee intended to present their recommendations to council then. Because people at the meeting said they would like another meeting involving council, Carver said they want to try to arrange it. Carver plans to talk to the council and arrange a time to meet. 

“We’re like them, the sooner we can get this done the better. All we need to figure out is how quickly we can set a meeting up,” said Carver.