Lakes of Muirfield moving forward

Adelle Ellis
Times Reporter
The Lakes of Muirfield is making some positive headway as construction for the mechanical system should be underway this fall, to be completed throughout the winter for next spring.
The update was brought to Wheatland County Council by Bill Maher, head of development for The Homesteads, and Jimmy Souza, project manager for the Lakes of Muirfield, during the July 4 regular council meeting.
The Homesteads is a newly-planned and approved 3,000 home community that will be developed adjacent to the Lakes of Muirfield.
“We (The Homesteads) have entered into a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Muirfield on how that will happen between the sanitary sewer that we will provide and the water initially that they will provide and they will all become one utility as time goes by,” said Maher, adding that they would soon be in meetings with a utility company who is seriously looking at taking on and being the utility company for the two developments of the Lakes of Muirfield and the Homesteads.
The developers are treating sewer and water solutions as two separate projects and utilities are a separate entity of what they are dealing with.
Currently, approval has been granted for the lagoon and pipeline option for wastewater, which involves the wastewater to be gathered and transported in a pipeline that would go to Cattleland where it would be treated in a lagoon system utility plant to be spray irrigated within Cattleland.
“We’ve already approached Alberta Environment in modifying the approval that we have for a better system, we think,” said Maher, adding that Alberta Environment has responded that there is a process to be completed before the modification can be finalized and approved.
Because of the process and where Muirfield is, developers are looking at conducting an upgraded mechanical plan for wastewater. Mechanical treatment would result in a continuous discharge with the need to still have spray irrigation among other things that they currently have approval for with the plans of their original approved system.
Maher stated that if Alberta Environment doesn’t approve the updated plan, then Muirfield still currently has an approved system that they will be able to go back to and use, as they currently have the lagoon approved and in place and the second stage for it is also mechanical treatment.
Homestead and the Lakes of Muirfield will be using the same system and all the agreements are already signed.
“Our next step is to get the utility company in place and have the agreements (with them) for servicing,” said Maher, adding that the County will receive copies of the agreement.
Construction for the mechanical system will begin this fall regardless on if approval is granted from Alberta Environment for the new and better system. If approval isn’t granted for the new system, the original approved system will be put into construction and will be worked on throughout the winter to be completed by spring 2018.
“I honestly believe that we are finally turning a corner, that really we should have a golden shovel and turn some sod today,” said Souza, adding that in the past 30 days, 25 lots have been sold in the Lakes of Muirfield, which is something that hasn’t happened since 2007 following the original sod turning in June 2006.
Construction of housing for the Homesteads will also begin next spring or summer.
“We look forward to getting some firm construction dates and actually seeing some work being done,” said Reeve Glenn Koester.