Medicine Hat, Redcliff, Cypress County to study regional water, waste water strategy
By COLLIN GALLANT on February 25, 2023.
cgallant@medicinehatnews.com@CollinGallant Medicine Hat, Redcliff and Cypress County will jointly study creating a regional water and waste water strategy and potential partnership, which one councillor says may be needed to reach goals on growth. Coun. Shila Sharps sits on a joint committee of the three municipalities that operates under a collaboration framework agreed to in 2020. Most recently work has proceeded on a growth goal announced last month by Mayor Linnsie Clark to add more than 40,000 residents over 20 years. That apparently has caused committee members from the town and county, which have both built water infrastructure or bought new water rights over the past 10 years, to wonder about the city’s position on the water market. “It was a very robust conversation,” said Sharps. “We need to drive down and determine if we have the water to get to that grand plan of 100,000 (residents).” Council approved the study which would be mostly funded by a $200,000 grant from the province’s Alberta Community Partnership program. Sewage pact extended City council has voted to extend a sewer service agreement with Cypress County until 2034. That lines up with the dates of an agreement to supply potable water to the hamlets of Desert Blume and Veinerville signed in 2005. “You can’t have one without the other,” said utility and infrastructure managing director Brad Maynes, who described the move as a matter of continuity. “The request is to bring them into alignment.” Though signed at the same time, the two separate agreements have different expiration dates. Council approved a motion from the utility division to extend the sewer agreement, which was to expire in 2024, to May 31, 2034, at which time the water provision agreement will also come due. 14-13
