New Muirfield wastewater plan projected to cut costs in half

By Sean Feagan, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Wastewater costs at Lakes of Muirfield are projected to be cut in half, following the approval of a new plan for the county to provide in-house disposal services.

The Lakes of Muirfield, a residential development located in the hamlet of Lyalta in Wheatland County, lacks permanent water treatment infrastructure. As a result, wastewater generated there is collected and moved via an underground system to a temporary storage site, then is hauled by truck for treatment.

To date, this has been performed by a private company, which has resulted in reportedly high wastewater disposal costs for residents. The new plan will see the county provide disposal services; this requires the county to purchase additional equipment, including two used tanker trailers with pumps and a semi-tractor truck – the cost of which is not to exceed $270,000 – and hire or allocate a full-time staff member to haul wastewater 50 hours per week.

The plan is projected to cut wastewater costs by about half.

Currently, four loads per day, five days a week, are hauled by WildRose Vacuum Services, costing $13.70 per cubic metre of wastewater, in addition to the cost of disposal at the Strathmore Wastewater Treatment Plant ($600 monthly plus $2.10 per cubic metre) and water from the Wheatland Regional Corporation ($105 per hour). Altogether, this equals a cost of $16.03 per cubic metre of wastewater. This approach will be continued until Oct. 31, 2020.

Under the new plan, the cost of hauling, considering the amount paid per hour to the driver and cost of the equipment, is estimated to equal $6.17 per cubic metre. The plan is to alternate the disposal of the four loads between the Strathmore plant and the Carseland lagoon, resulting in an estimated total cost of hauling and disposal per cubic metre of $8.50 and $7.88, respectively.

The plan could be an interim solution until a permanent wastewater treatment network is in place, said Matthew Boscariol, Wheatland County’s general manager of community and development services.

“It provides us time to look at whether we are going to have mass servicing throughout the west side of the county and how to connect things together – really looking at creating a utility network, as opposed to just a system.”

Hauling has worked as a permanent solution before, he added. “Some developments similar to Muirfield, in other provinces, they have this hauling practice as a full-time solution, and it just works.”

But a more permanent solution will likely be sought by the county, said Mike Zehr, the county’s general manager of transportation and agriculture, during the meeting. “If we’re still doing this in 10 years, I’d be disappointed for sure, because we want to have something in place in the next three to five years that takes this away.”

For now, the new plan should help the marketability of Lakes of Muirfield to potential buyers, said Boscariol. 

“It’s a beautiful community with a high quality of life, and unfortunately, the wastewater was always a discussion point,” he said. “It’s always been there, but now we have an interim solution that will be reliable for the residents there and for future development.”