Plans for a new water reservoir for the Halkirk area have taken another step closer with an engineer contracted to design the plans.
At a special meeting Sept. 16, County of Paintearth council awarded the tender to Williams Engineering Canada to provide engineering services, prepare preliminary and detailed designs and manage the project for a new water reservoir for Halkirk and Coronation at a cost of $688,000.
Plans for two new water reservoirs in the County of Paintearth are moving ahead with provincial and federal funding for the project estimated at $9 million.
“The project has to be fully commissioned by the end of March 2011 to receive the funding,” said Tarolyn Peach, chief administrative officer for the County of Paintearth.
“It gives us only one construction year so we work diligently to get it completed.”
The county plans to go to bidding in January, which, Peach said, will likely be divided into several tender projects for each reservoir and each component of the work including the main pipeline and the feeder line.
After hearing proposals from two companies during its regular meeting Sept. 15, council reviewed both before making the final decision.
In May, a joint application with the Village of Halkirk and the Town of Coronation to fund two new water reservoirs was approved by the Canada – Alberta Building Canada Fund for communities under 100,000 population to meet pressing infrastructure needs.
The awarded contractor will also be constructing the new water distribution system in the county.
With this program, the governments of Alberta and Canada are contributing one third each of the total eligible costs of these projects while the municipality will provide the other one third of the funding.