WESTLOCK – The Town of Westlock’s water distribution master plan, the final of four master plans by the town, is now updated following a presentation to council.
Details of the master plan, as outlined in a 42-page report, was presented by project manager Scott Kusalik of MPE Engineering Ltd. during a committee of the whole meeting on March 21.
Town CAO Simone Wiley said information presented in the updated water distribution master plan will help decide areas of priority for consideration in next year’s budget, expected at the end of 2022.
“For us it’s about good, financial planning in regard to our assets and making really informed decisions … and how we prioritize which capital projects are being done,” said Wiley. “This being the last master plan in the series, it will really allow us now to update our asset management program and get all those layers in place.”
Prior to the presentation in March, the most recent update to the town’s water master plan was completed in 2009. Since the update occurred more than a decade ago, the town commissioned MPE Engineering Ltd. (MPE) to prepare an update to the water distribution master plan.
Kusalik highlighted several areas of the report and provided some background on the master plan, including an overview of design criteria that was used, a summary of the existing system condition, the treated water storage and pump capacity details, the water distribution network analysis they did, as well as upgrading recommendations and cost estimates.
“The scope of this master plan includes assessing the condition of the system through review of the known issues … we assessed the hydraulic condition of the water distribution system through an update to the existing water models with additional data gathered, assessed the capability of the water distribution system to satisfy short and long-term requirements and then we prepared options for system expansion, including cost estimates,” said Kusalik in his presentation to council.
The plan is one of four master plans the town has created over the past two years — the other three include a transportation master plan, sewer master plan and stormwater master plan. With the report and update to council on the master plan now complete, administration will take the information and utilize it in the town’s asset management program.
“This is the last of our master plans that need to be done. We started with our stormwater master plan update a couple of years ago and we’ve done sewer and now water,” said Wiley. “MPE Engineering had also done an integrated planning document early on in the last couple of years as well, just adding to our compliment of information and data that we have to input into our asset management program.”
Administration will look at those recommendations from the water distribution master plan noted Wiley, adding the recommendations are based on factors such as age and condition.
“What we now have to do is take the recommendations from all the master planning documents and put them into the asset management program,” she said, noting that process will help prioritize areas for the town and aide in selecting their capital projects that will be brought forward during budget deliberations at the end of the year.
During the presentation, council asked questions pertaining to standards in water consumption usage, where water consumption comes from, issues with water flow and water pressure, population growth, strain on the system, fire flow availability, system upgrades, and next steps.
Master plans generally have a five-to-10-year lifespan and are updated accordingly as the community changes over the years, noted Wiley.
“It’s somewhat dependent on the amount of development that you have in the community as well, as new things come on to the system … we purposely staggered the updates of each of the plans so that they all didn’t come due in the same year,” Wiley concluded.
