Wait continues for water services

A group of Turner Valley residents may have to wait at least another decade before getting water services from the Town, though some say they’ve waited long enough.

Turner Valley Town council agreed at its July 11 meeting to revisit its 10-year capital plan this summer to provide water and sewer services in Cuffling Flats and the Okalta Road area, but they say the process would take several years.

It’s not what residents were hoping to hear.

“We’ve been frustrated with the lack of progress in services,” said Glenn Kalyniuk, one of the nine property owners in Cuffling Flats. “We don’t think it’s reasonable that they keep blowing us off.”

In September 2012, Kalyniuk and his neighbours signed a letter asking the Town to supply water and sewer to their properties to replace their wells and septic tanks.

“We are within the town limits and pay $5,200 tax bills for our little acreages and we get no water or sewer services,” he said. “Years later we are no further ahead. It’s just been one delay after another. We are prepared to pay a local improvement tax – we told them that.”

Kalyniuk said he moved to Cuffling Flats in 2003, and thought he would have Town water by now.

“The wells are crappy,” he said. “You can’t take a proper shower. My wife couldn’t have a bath.”

The Kalyniuks purchase 300-gallon tanks of water in Longview when the water levels are low, sometimes as often as 12 times a year, and they use bottled water to drink and cook.

Barry Williamson, Turner Valley’s chief administrative officer, said the Town must take the proper steps before providing services to the area.

“We have an area structure plan in place but not a redevelopment plan to look at how density or development should take place on these various roads that have acreages on them,” he said, adding they passed first reading on an area redevelopment plan last spring and expect to hold an open house and public hearing in September.

“You have to get that infrastructure plan in place and the costs associated with that and how to provide for the cost. These are very large infrastructure dollars.”

When considering how to finance the project, which will likely cost millions of dollars, Williamson said they will have to consider local improvement taxes, grants and borrowing.

“The cost of putting in infrastructure is quite high,” he said. “If you are not meeting certain density targets you are going to have difficulty passing on that cost, whether it’s local improvement taxes or levies.”

Williamson said when homeowners bought those properties, they were aware that the Town did not provide water or sewer.

“We haven’t made any promises on that – not by the current council or administration that I’m aware of,” he said.

Mayor Kelly Tuck said the Town took over the land from the MD of Foothills in 1971, and that water and sewer should have been provided by now.

“Past councils made a commitment to do something and for whatever reason it hasn’t occurred,” she said. “This council needs to come together and come up with a plan and say September or October we are going to put a timeline around when we are going to put services in that area. We really do need to sit down and analyze what this is going to look like.”

James Holladay, who lives in Cuffling Flats with his wife and four children, said their well has run dry.

Holladay wants to work with the Town to get water and sewer services to his neighbourhood before he has to drill a new well at a cost of $10,000 to $20,000.

“I would rather give you $20,000 for water than drill a well,” he told council last week.

Holladay said they bought the 30 acres of land in 2014 with the understanding that the redevelopment plan was in progress. He said the lack of water is affecting his family’s quality of life.

“We are running at a quarter of a gallon a minute,” he said. “We can’t do laundry and our showers are rationed. Water is a big issue for us.”

Coun. Dona Fluter told Holladay that council spent some time on this issue in the past, but the 2013 flood absorbed a lot of staff time the last three years and she agrees that it must be revisited as a priority.

She said it will take time.

“Right now what we’re saying is we are not going to be able to immediately provide services and there is a number of reasons for that,” she said. “It’s a unique situation that requires unique solutions and there is no quick fix in the next year or two for service. That’s not to say that it’s not going to be done in the foreseeable future.”

Fluter said she would like the Town to apply for government grants to alleviate the financial stress on taxpayers and residents, and that the Town will have to make a case to request that support.