NEWS PHOTO COLLIN GALLANT A linear park near Cameron Road in Ross Glen is due to have work on its aging irrigation system begin this week, the city's parks department has announced.
cgallant@medicinehatnews.com@CollinGallant
Nagging irrigation problems in Ross Glen will be cleared up this year, according to parks officials.
On Monday, officials with the department announced that this week contracted crews will begin replacing the near 40-year-old watering system in the linear park that winds through the community.
That could take up to three months to complete, and during the same time, fields near Ross Glen Towne Centre will be watered, mowed and have weeds removed too, but even after two years of construction, further work will be needed.
“It’s been a very challenging situation,” said James Will, the general manager of the parks and recreation department. “We’ll be irrigating the turf as best we can this season and there will likely be some remediation after this season.”
That work has taken place on large fields near the splash deck in Ross Glen for two years since an out-of-town contractor took over the $320,000 project in July 2017, but delays and reworkings have seen it taken longer than expected.
The department is “reviewing” the terms of the original contract to determine the city’s position, said Will, and determine how future repairs will be completed and paid for.
Work elsewhere in the community will upgrade and replace sprinkler systems in greenbelts that run behind homes.
As high-use areas in the park’s grading system, they are not being considered under a new program that aims at reducing maintenance, or a budget process that can favour capital projects to remove park features that require higher maintenance.
The linear park work however, will get done on leakage and recurring maintenance calls to repair the system that is reaching 40 years of age, said Will.
“You come to the point where you decide to put in a system that will be good for another 35 or 40 years,” he said. “That’s rather than working on bits and pieces all the time.”
The linear parks run behind back fences in the community creating a pathway system where alleys might be in a more traditional neighbourhood.
The watering system dates back to the late 1970s when the community was first developed.
Let’s see if they do it right this time, considering the nearby water park field is mostly dead.