MELFORT — Melfort council has passed a motion to allow the city to borrow $4 million for water line replacements this summer.
This isn’t the first public conversation about the borrowing with it being a topic of discussion when council deliberated the 2022 budget in January. The city loses about 12 to 15 per cent of its water supply due to breaks annually.
Adam Homes, Melfort’s city manager, called the $4 million loan a start to alleviating the issue.
“We’ve had a lot of issues with the water mains aging and breaking. Even this year going into 2022 we’ve had quite a few breaks,” Homes said. “Getting this borrowing bylaw is pretty important to us to get this work going.”
Homes said the complete replacement will cost the city in the range of $15 to $20 million.
“It’s going to be a bit of a process for us because over half of our network are old cast iron pipes that lend themselves to breaking, especially with the changing seasons and the freeze-thaw cycle, so this will be a start. We will be doing this over the next five to ten years.”
The special meeting of council was held March 25. The $4 million in water line replacements is expected to begin this summer.
