City staff keeping eye on drought potential

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This article was published 03/02/2024 (957 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Brandon city staff are keeping an eye on the risk for a potential drought in 2024.

Director of utilities Alexia Stangherlin told Brandon City Council on the first day of budget deliberations that the Wheat City does not have raw water storage.

With light snowfall so far this winter, Stangherlin said the city will use its position on the Shellmouth Dam liaison committee to try to ensure enough water is released from the reservoir into the Assiniboine River.

However, Brandon is still waiting on the province to release its 2024 flood and drought outlooks, which are expected soon, she said.

Stangherlin said design work on a new water intake for the city water treatment plant on the river is currently on hold as it works on membrane treatment facilities. After those new facilities are completed, she said the city will see how much of the infrastructure funding it received from the provincial government is left to direct toward the intake next year.

Coun. Barry Cullen (Ward 3) asked for administration’s assistance in drafting a motion to move the intake project up to 2024 for the second day of deliberations on Saturday.

Brandon is part of a federal benchmarking program for municipal water supplies. Stangherlin said water quality in the city is safe, but not at the level they want it to be. That should improve once upgrades are complete.

An annual report on the city’s water quality should be complete soon, Stangherlin said.

Coun. Shawn Berry (Ward 7) said the city is paying a lot of overtime for utility personnel, saying it was hard to justify and asking Stangherlin how it is controlled in her departments.

She said much of those overtime costs are because of standards requiring a certain amount of certified staff working at any one time. Additionally, because staff aren’t working 24-7, people have to be called in to deal with after-hours issues.

In response to a question by Coun. Kris Desjarlais (Ward 3), Stangherlin said the age of Brandon’s water infrastructure, such as watermains, are higher than in many other municipalities participating in the benchmarking program and Brandon is seeing increasing numbers of mains breaking.

General manager of development services Mark Allard said the city is trying to improve its asset management to help deal with that situation.

His counterpart in charge of operations, Patrick Pulak, said watermain breaks are one of the factors that help determine when mains need to be replaced because it is hard to inspect pressurized watermains.

According to Stangherlin, work is being doing to create a new lead-pipe replacement program for residents, but consultations with the involved regulating body are ongoing. She said $100,000 remains set aside for that purpose from a previous year’s budget.

Economic development director Gerald Cathcart listed a few challenges with Brandon’s desires to grow.

For many years, he said, Brandon has been limited in its ability to bring in large industrial projects because of electrical restrictions. However, he said Manitoba Hydro has indicated those challenges will likely be lifted by 2027.

Water poses challenges in multiple ways, whether from limited utility services in the east end industrial area, limited service capacity in south Brandon or trying to figure out how to get enough water from both underground aquifers and from the Assiniboine River.

Some of the south end water constraints should be improved with the southwest lift station project, which he said will be able to service light industrial projects.

On top of the southwest lift station project, upgrades to the south-end lift station are scheduled in both 2024 and 2026, though Allard said the city will monitor performance after the first set of upgrades to see if the second is warranted.

Beyond city initiatives, Mayor Jeff Fawcett said Koch Fertilizer is planning $100 million in work on its Brandon facilities and Chemtrade $20 million worth of work on its facilities.

During an overview of Brandon’s corporate services, the general manager of that department, Cory Schermann, said a review into indemnities for city councillors will also include a look into whether Brandon’s number of councillors should be adjusted or whether a city of Brandon’s size justifies changing councillor positions from part-time to full-time.

Coun. Bruce Luebke (Ward 6) suggested that councillors themselves should probably not make recommendations on their own indemnities, to which city manager Ron Bowles said a group of local residents and businesses would be convened.

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