“By the end of this, we would have spent $18-million on 350 people.”
Amid Malik, director of infrastructure for the MD of Bonnyville, explained where over $16-million has gone in road construction in Ardmore during their regular council meeting on Wednesday, May 8.
For some councillors, the news that much money has been spent on the project to-date was a hard pill to swallow.
“It just blows my mind to be honest with you. I just think about the other things we could be spending $20-million on,” expressed Coun. Darcy Skarsen. “I have some serious issues with this… I feel we’re in too deep to turn back now. Where can we even go from here?”
Since 2013, the Hamlet of Ardmore has been the scene of constant construction as crews work away at underground and road work.
Phases one and two of the project, which included the water, sewer, and surface drainage on 48 Ave. and a portion of 50 St., water and sewer on 52 St., and surface work on 50 St. and 48 Ave., cost the municipality over $3.8-million and was completed in 2014.
The next phase of work completed in 2014/15 rang in at roughly $2.1-million, and included an underground stormwater system on 50 Ave. The west storm pond, which was also finished in phase three, cost $307,600.
In 2016, the underground utilities, including water, sewer, and storm on 51 and 52 St., and on 51 and 49 Ave., was finished at a cost of about $2.4-million. The remaining $1-million allocated to phase four covered the bill for surface work on 52 St. and 48 Ave.
The following year, the MD paid $817,000 for the construction of the east side storm pond, followed by the surface work on the west side of Ardmore, which cost over $2-million.
The underground work for the east side of the hamlet had a price tag of about $2.5-million.
The next leg of the project, phase six, has the surface work done for 49, 50, and 51 Ave., and 48 and 49 St.
Additional items council considered were the underground stormwater for 48 Ave., an option Coun. Dana Swigart thought was never feasible.
“We asked several years ago if we could run underground storm down 48 Ave., but were told it couldn’t happen because we haven’t designed our system properly. The problem is, we keep doing these projects in piecemeal, so council votes on this year, then the next year, and then the next year, and we have no consistency with the phasing, the engineering work, or the work,” he exclaimed. “Unfortunately, I’m seeing that now. We were told there was no possible way with the storm pond’s location, we could have storm water drainage on 48 Ave., now we’re saying there is a possibility.”
Malik confirmed it could be done.
“To be honest, the grades here are very low.
It’s very difficult to adjust all of these grades underground, especially from the south side of 48 Ave. But, it’s workable in this situation to accommodate flows only from the 50 St. intersection, in front of the proposed fire hall, and connecting it with 49 St. It’s possible. It can be done, but it will cost $208,000,” he detailed.
Other optional items were the looping of waterline from 48 to 47 Ave. with a price tag of $226,000, surface work for 47 Ave. at a cost of $690,000, underground water and sewer work along 47 Ave. for $1.2-million, and replacing the remaining underground on 50 St.
“I think we should just continue on with our existing paving, with the exclusion of 47 Ave., because it brings another set of parameters into this... We want to look at the entire picture of Ardmore before we make any recommendations on tying anymore stormwater in whatsoever, so we can get a proper recommendation to council, and the best recommendation, because this ties into the west side of town as well,” noted CAO Luc Mercier. “You asked us to look at tying (waterline) in 48 St. and 49 St., we’re saying don’t do it now until we’ve had a chance to look at the entire project. Let’s just pave, and worst case scenario, we have to rip up a little pavement to tie that in.”
He added, Ardmore is just the start.
“We need to come up with options that are smart decisions to be made for the next 50 years for all municipalities,” Mercier exclaimed. “In this case… we should have a look at the entire community. We’re going to be doing the same thing for all of our other small hamlets in the years to come. We need to look at the big picture first so we can make informed decisions. In this case, for whatever reason, we piecemealed it together, with the best intentions, but we didn’t see the big picture and you say ‘well if I had known it was going to cost $20-million… we would have done something different,’ and I think that’s what we need to do moving forward.”
Council approved funding phase six of the Ardmore project without paving 47 Ave. at a cost of $1.7-million.
“The existing direction is to repave over a road that we ripped apart last year. Lets just take that one step at a time. Then what Amid is recommending, is for us to come back to council with the rest of the plan in the next few months,” stressed Mercier. “This is where we’re at, whether we like it or not.”
