The Wildrose Party is concerned that the government may be acting too slowly in regards to repairing the province’s aging water and wastewater infrastructure.
On Tuesday, March 16, Glenn van Dijken, MLA for Barrhead-Morinville-Westlock, during question period asked Brian Mason, Alberta Minister of Transportation, what the government was going to do to about funding the province’s aging infrastructure.
“Towns, villages and counties across Alberta are worried about their water and wastewater infrastructure,” he said, adding if something isn’t done soon to address the problem, many jurisdictions may be facing environmental issues.
van Dijken said if the wastewater sewage treatment plant in Blairmore isn’t fixed immediately, raw sewage would flow into the Crowsnest River, adding similar sytems in Blackfalds and Lacombe do not meet environmental standards.
“The government has given the indication that they are going to be borrowing a lot of funds for infrastructure construction and modernization,” he said in a telephone interview from Calgary on March 21.
van Dijken, who is the Wildrose’s Transportation critic, was in Calgary to meet his new granddaughter, as well as to help Wildrose candidate Devinder Toor’s campaign efforts in the Calgary-Greenway byelection.
He said throughout Alberta many rural and urban communities have made applications for provincial infrastructure funding, especially for wastewater projects.
“Many of these projects are starting to get into the critical stage where we need to start to address them,” he said, giving the example of Westlock’s water tower, adding the tower is literally crumbling and is putting the region’s entire water supply at risk. “We want to make sure that some of these projects actually move forward and that the government doesn’t use this infrastructure spending for their pet projects.”
van Dijken said one of his and the Wildrose’s concerns is that if municipalities do not receive this money soon, a lot of the projects may face additional delays.
“We should have been sitting a month ago,” he said. The Alberta spring legislature sitting began on March 8 with the speech from the throne. Although the date when a government releases a budget varies, it traditionally is released in late February to early March. “We are starting to get into the situation where if they (provincial and municipal governments) don’t make decisions soon we will lose another construction season.”
To help aid municipalities in their infrastructure planning, the Wildrose Party has asked the government to publish a sunshine list.
“Something that would show us what their priorities are and what they are focusing on. It would also allow the local municipalities to make plans accordingly,” van Dijken said. “That is why we are asking the questions to try to get some transparency there so municipalities know what to plan for.”
