Town to consider future of local potable water resources

By John Watson Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Potable water use and storage continue to be high priority topics for Town of Strathmore council.

Ethan Wilson, manager of infrastructure, provided an update to the new council similar to a presentation he made roughly 14 months ago regarding the town’s current infrastructure, and open discussion about next steps as rapid local population growth is imminent. 

The purpose being to inform the new council of major long-term capital projects which will be necessary to address the town’s future growth.

“Currently, we have an effective capacity of about 14,500 cubes of water … when you look at what we use daily, you can see on average we use about 4,000 cubes a day, so we currently have about three to four days of storage,” said Wilson. “When you look at our maximum day, this would be a hot day in the summer when everybody is out watering their grass, kids are playing in the sprinklers, many additional uses than just general hygiene, we are (using) 7,800 cubic meters a day, so that means our storage is now down to two days.”

Town administration is stressing that water licenses are a critical limiting factor, which outweighs local storage capacity, as well as the capacity of the East Calgary Regional Water Line. 

This is due to the Bow River being a capped, as well as potentially an already overutilized resource. 

Though the town’s current storage is adequate, the local reservoir is anticipated to become a bottleneck on future development roughly by 2040.

“The Bow River … normally has flows between 50 and 300 cubic meters per second – that is in Cochrane, so upstream of Calgary. This is the main water source for the Calgary region which includes Cochrane, Airdrie, Chestermere, and Strathmore,” said Wilson. 

“About 1.7 million people are served daily. That also includes downstream municipalities: Brooks, Medicine Hat, (and) many others. This is definitely an important water body for the region. It is our only source of water at this time.”

The area now being occupied by and developed into the Lakewood neighborhood was previously the town’s raw water storage site.

Prior to 2018, the town maintained operation of both the Brentwood and Wildflower reservoirs. Around the same time the Wildflower reservoir was shut down, the Brentwood reservoir was restricted to operations at approximately 50 per cent capacity, as its condition was noted to be deteriorating. 

Administration is recommending that the current council incorporate water resources, water conservation, and water reuse into their strategic planning going forward. 

Regarding local redundancy, it was noted that increasing storage capacity would be a more cost-effective solution for the town as opposed to constructing an independent water treatment facility.

No additional decision making regarding the future of the town’s water supplies was finalized during the meeting.