A request from Manitoba Water Services Board (MWSB) has prompted the City of Dauphin to prioritize some of its capital needs for the community’s water and sewer system.

The annual request comes from the provincial department as it considers its five-year capital plan and projects it can fund.

Topping the city’s list is upgrades to and expansion of the lagoon system on the northern edge of the city. The project has been on the city’s radar for a number of years.

According to Public Works and Operations director Mike VanAlstyne, the current lagoon system has difficulty meeting the environmental limits within the City’s operating license.

A study was conducted in 2016, to determine what upgrades would be required to allow for continuous discharge with effluent meeting the nitrogen and phosphorus levels of provincial regulations.

Upgrades, he said, would include replacing the blowers and aeration system, installing a liquid level control manhole, installing new intercell piping, installation of new forcemain piping, and the construction of an ammonia reduction reactor.

“The lagoon has been a long standing question mark for the city that we’ve been pressing to get funding for,” VanAlstyne said. “And without funding, I don’t think an upgrade can happen. So that’s why we continue to place it in our first priority.”

The city has been looking at alternative ammonia reduction strategies which might help reduce the costs of the project and has actually run a trial on one system which has proven successful in more temperate climates, VanAlstyne said.

“It hasn’t really been proven in northern climates. In the two winters we tried it, it was successful, it’s proven that it works. So that would provide some cost savings,” he said, adding the project would still cost in the neighbourhood of $13 million.

The next project on the list is a renewal and rehabilitation of the watermain on Main Street South.

The project is high on the priority list given the province’s plans to rebuild the road and redistribute traffic flow in the area.

“It probably wouldn’t have been looked at except for that (the province is) considering paving,” VanAlstyne said, adding over the past few years, the City has hired Canadian Induracoat Corporation to reline portions of the water distribution system.

Induracoat, he said uses technology that greatly reduces the intrusiveness of a watermain renewal project by only excavating at two locations and using proprietary materials and technology to spin-cast a polyurea coating inside the existing infrastructure, essentially creating a new pipe inside the old piping.

The City is planning to reline the large watermain from Whitmore Avenue to 4th Avenue South over the next two years and Manitoba Transportation and Infrastructure is planning to resurface the pavement along this portion of Main Street in 2024.

“That way we can kind of renew the infrastructure without digging up all of Main Street and we would hopefully be on top of that so that we have a smooth road for the foreseeable future instead of a year from now having to dig a new hole in it,” VanAlstyne said.

Third on the list is pressure management controls for the city’s water distribution system.

The project would entail adding chambers throughout the system. These chambers would have a pressure reducing valve, as well as a flow meter installed in them, VanAlstyne said

“With the elevation change from our water treatment plant to town our booster station actually acts as more of a pressure reduction, it drops the speed at which the water is coming into town rather than actually boosting it,” he said. “Because without that reduction system the psi at the north end of town would be like 120 psi. So when somebody turned their taps on it would blow the taps pretty well right apart.”

On top of helping to control pressure evenly throughout the system, the chambers would also ultimately help to reduce or identify water loss.

“We do have some water loss every year from between the plant and what’s being collected at the lift stations,” VanAlstyne said. “So we know that there’s water missing that’s been treated and it’s not making its way through the piping. This would help us identify where those gaps are or where the leaks are that we’re not catching right now.”

Next on the list is water supply security, identified as a priority in the summer of 2021 when drought conditions led to significant water shortages throughout the province.

Fortunately, some timely rainfalls kept both the Vermillion Reservoir and Edwards Lake with more than sufficient water to provide for the City’s consumption, without having to restrict water usage.

“We were very fortunate with timely rains in the park that kept our water supply quite full, but in southern Manitoba they were struggling. So we want to kind of keep our issues in the back of the minds of the people in government that could happen to us, too, and we don’t want to have to get to that point.”

The City would like the province to investigate improving the capacity of the Vermillion Reservoir.

Additionally, the reservoir at the Water Treatment Plant is requiring some maintenance work, including dredging or sediment removal.

Finally, the intake channel along Edwards Creek, in which the City controls flows to the treatment plant could benefit from channel improvements, VanAlstyne said, such as widening and deepening the channel, lining the channel with geotextile materials to try to lessen sediment release, and lining with stone rip-rap to prevent any erosion during peak run-off.

The final project on the list is renewal of the aqueduct supplying treated drinking water to the city from the water treatment plant.

Funding would be used to develop a program for inspection and renewal or replacement of a few kilometers of piping every few years, he said.

“It’s large infrastructure piping and it does take some significant funding to replace sections of it,” VanAlstyne said. “We’re putting this on to try to keep replacing pieces. We’d look at 500 meters a year or so, chunk it off into manageable amounts.”

The five projects identified are not the only utility related work, but represent some needs outside of the City’s regular capital expenditure, VanAlstyne added.

“There’s always our standard residential renewal works that fall more into our capital works each year,” he said. “Some of these larger scale projects, I don’t think we’ve identified any other ones at the moment, but they’ll continue to pop up as time goes on.”