Community works together to fix water leak

By Sean Feagan, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

When Rockyford’s water supply was disrupted by a leak in the distribution system, a group of locals rolled up their sleeves and worked together to fix the problem.

The leak happened on May 3, leaving Rockyford without water and causing a boil water advisory to be issued by Alberta Health Services. It took 10 hours for the leak to be isolated and the problem resolved.

The Village of Rockyford has a contract with Wheatland Regional Corporation (WRC) to provide the service and operations of the water distribution system in the village. WRC’s system monitors normal daily usage, capacity and other parameters. When water consumption increased from around one to two litres per second to five to six litres per second, the alarm of a potential leak was raised, explained Rockyford Mayor Darcy Burke.

Rockyford’s municipal office was then notified, and crews were dispatched to find the leak, but it took time to isolate it. One of the contractors working on site happened to look through a window of an unoccupied commercial property, and noticed water pooling inside. After investigation, the leak was found inside the building.

The Village of Rockyford is about halfway complete with a 10-year capital replacement plan for deep services, including water distribution. Issues with the village’s aging underground infrastructure is a challenge, but this is not unique among Alberta municipalities, said Burke.

“We ended up with a water main break outside the scope of what we’re working on, but municipalities have these breaks through the winter months and in the spring when the frost is happening, so it’s not uncommon,” he said. “The problem with ours was just the difficulty locating it and then working with a line that did not have shutoff valves.”

The community, including residents, village and WRC staff, and contractors working locally, worked together to fix the problem. “At the end of the day, it was pretty humbling to see people stepping forward to help us,” said Burke. Kevin and Amber Link also helped the situation by supplying potable water with a water truck.

“That’s what happens when communities get into an emergency situation, and that’s what it was in Rockyford, an emergency situation – you see folks really step forward to help through the process,” said Burke, who added he thanks residents for their patience throughout the ordeal which saw the village without water for the longest time in its history.

A debriefing of the event was held during the Rockyford village council meeting on May 12. This was done to consider the effectiveness of the response and how future efforts might be improved. One area to be focused on is communication, said Burke.

“While I believe our municipality performed very well in the communication part, there’s always room for improvement,” he noted.

The Village of Rockyford is currently exploring options to increase its communication ability to community residents in emergency situations. One option is Buoyant, a digital platform linking online services.

The strength of Rockyford’s response to the emergency was how many agencies were able to work together to solve the problem, said Burke. “We all had a common goal, and we came up with a plan to get the issue resolved.”