Beaverhill Drainage report leaves Lamont County

BY JOHN MATHER

Lamont County councillors were visibly upset following information received regarding the ongoing Beaverhill Drainage project at a special council meeting July 18.

Public Works had hired Associated Engineering to conduct an assessment of the area and give council an update on the project.

Administration was looking for council to award the project despite it having a shortfall of $98,146.09.

Associated Engineering project manager Kristen Davies said they were asked to prepare the proposal in 2020 and the project didn’t materialize until 2021.

“I guess the question I have,” said Reeve David Diduck. “Is we’ve titled this Beaverhill Drainage but what is the actual scope of the project.”

Davies said it was initiated in response to a drainage area identified in the Lamont County Drainage study.

She said the County had plans to put a culvert across Range Road 171 to ease drainage on one property, and Associated was asked to see if installing the culvert would cause adverse effects downstream.

She added the maps showed a tentative route water would take towards Beaverhill Lake and Associated was asked to look at the route and determine any impacts it would have moving towards the lake.

She said their study found the area was very flat with low areas that ponded water.

“We discovered there was no real clear drainage path from the culvert to Beaverhill Lake.

“We modelled that area and different catchment areas and modelled it for a one in 100 year flooding event.”

She said it would flood and there was no clear path for efficient drainage in the area.

She said there was a slight drop in height from Highway 16 to Beaverhill Lake, but it wasn’t feasible to create a large drainage channel in the area.

She said the final design included enlarging some culverts and upgrading others going downstream to ensure there was an escape route for waters in a flood event to amen its way to Beaverhill Lake.

“In the end it was less than what we expected, but in the end that was what we recommended,” said Davies.

Councillor Daniel Warawa said when they toured the area recently he said all it seemed to be was “equalization culverts” not really a drainage project.

“This is in my division and this isn’t what I thought it would be.”

He said under previous Chief Administrative Officer Stephen Hill, Warawa thought ditches would be scraped and in some places filled and other taken down.

“Really this is not what I expected,” he said.

Councillor Roy Anaka asked how deep ditch sculpting would go.

Associated Engineering engineer Diego Mejia told council essentially they just improved positive drainage along the route and they hadn’t done any ditch sculpting.

The pair agreed with Warawa that it was essentially an equalization rather than a drainage project.

“The intent potentially was possible ditch upgrades, but once we realized how flat it is out there, it wasn’t feasible to construct a ditch all the way to Beaverhill Lake.

“Well why didn’t they come and tell us,” demanded Warawa.

“This is an expensive project if it’s just some equalization.”

Councillor Wick added he was under the impression the project would be a full drainage project but after reviewing the master drainage plan, “it doesn’t show that we’ll ever be able to make all that water go back to the lake because of all the farming that’s been done in the low lying areas.”

He added with the low elevation there would be too much ditching and excavation.

“We could have done this work in-house with our own resources,” he said. “I think we wasted a whole bunch of money on this project trying to make something happen.”

He felt it could be done by the County over a couple of years. He added it wouldn’t improve anyone’s ability to increase their farming.

“We could save $300,000 or $400,000 if we did it in-house.”

Warsaw agreed saying they wouldn’t be getting anything out of the work that had been done.

Davies said if the County wanted to move ahead changing out culverts on their own then that was probably a good route to take.

She added the initial design work was necessary because it allowed them, as engineers, and the County to see what was needed and what really wasn’t feasible.

Councillor Neil Woitas said when the study was completed it should have been passed on to council so they wouldn’t have wasted time just putting in equalization culverts … a project they could have done in house.

Wick added he had flown a drone across part of the drainage route and in several areas the drainage ditches had been farmed right over.

“There was no drainage in the area whatsoever,” he said. “From Rge. Rd. 171 to

Twp. Rd. 522, I stopped at all the culvert crossings. In a lot of the areas the crops are completely grown through the ditches.”

After the pair from Associated signed out of the meeting, Diduck asked council how they would like to proceed.

“My consensus is this isn’t a project we should attempt,” said Wick.

“We have some projects we can do in-house including some ditch clean ups we can budget for over a couple of years rather than spending upwards of $400,000 on a project we didn’t need to have as a project.”

Anaka wasn’t in favour of preceding with the drainage project because there was no grant funding available, “something we just found out today.”

Woitas also agreed to put the brakes on the project.

“We’ve spent a lot of money we didn’t have to.”

Warsaw said he agreed with stopping the project because it wasn’t the project council had been led to believe it was.

“This definitely wasn’t what the intent was when it first started,” he said.

“It was to have been a dig and fill drainage project when it first started. What is proposed we can do in-house without spending $400,000. I’m disappointed, but in reality it can be done inhouse.”

When Woitas asked how much had been spent, he was told about $66,000 had been spent to date for engineering on the project.

Council was then presented with a motion that the Beaverhill Drainage Improvements come under the annual culvert replacement program.

Council felt passing this motion would also allow it to work together with the County road