WOODLANDS COUNTY - Inflation has claimed another casualty, at least temporarily.
On Oct. 25, Woodlands County councillors awarded a $322,800 bridge maintenance/repair contract to Griffin Contracting for two structures, one in the Timeu and one in Blue Ridge. The price does not include GST.
Infrastructure director Andre Bachand said that initially, the county had hoped to complete repairs on three bridges. However, due to the estimates they received, they would only have enough funds to complete two projects: a bridge on Timeu Creek (NW-32-63-04-W5M) and a bridge over an unnamed watercourse near Blue Ridge on what Bachand called the "angle road".
Later in the meeting, councillors opted to drop the third in the 2023 bridge maintenance schedule to delay the bridge over Doris Creek (NW-32-63-04-W5M) to the 2024 bridge maintenance budget.
The municipality received three bids; the lowest was Griffin Contracting Ltd at $650,950, followed by Formula Alberta Ltd at $700,400 and Bridgeman Services Ltd at $744,200.
Bachand said that after consulting with their engineers, MPA Engineering, by changing the scope of the bid, they could come in under budget.
The 2023 bridge maintenance budget was set at $420,000.
Whitecourt West Coun. John Burrows asked if, when councillors begin their budget deliberation meetings slated for Nov. 23 and 27, as part of the county's asset management program, they have access to information on the estimated lifecycle or repair cycles of potential transportation-related infrastructure project, i.e. roads and bridges, for the next 10 years.
"The pavement rehab at the [Whitecourt Airport] could be $7 to $10 million, and it is hard for me to budget every year without being able to have a bigger picture 10 years down the road on what we have to spend money on," he said. "Because I don't want to be in a place where we have to take out a debenture and then, two years down the road, have to take out another one."
Unfortunately, Bachand said the short answer was no.
"The asset management program is not there yet, but we have the bridges four 15 years out, paved roads up to 10 years and equipment up to 25 years. The rest of the list is not out yet," he said.
Reeve Dave Kusch interjected that the municipality had a lot of the information and asked how long it would be until it would be in a form that councillors could look at.
Bachand replied that while he was not directly involved in the project, he said it is his understanding it is at least a year away.
CAO Gordon Frank agreed, saying the staff member responsible for the project is on leave, and their support person is still gathering and inputting the raw information into the county's asset management system.
"The evaluation portion of the system, which Coun. Burrows is interested in, is still being developed," he said, "There are components that we are using internally in determining when maintenance needs to be done; there is still a lot of work on the capital side."
Blue Ridge Coun. Bruce Prestidge said they were getting sidetracked, making a notice of motion that discussion on the asset management system be moved to the governance and priorities committee. The motion passed.
Whitecourt Central Coun. Alan Deane then moved that the council accept administration's recommendation to award the bridge contract to Griffins Contracting Ltd.
