The City of Airdrie’s newest water treatment plant located in the southwest neighbourhood of Windsong has been in operation for approximately two months, but was only unveiled to dignitaries and members of the press on Nov. 2.
The plant, which cost between $10 and $11 million, brings the City’s capacity for ensuring the safety of Airdrie’s water in line with a population of 80,000, according to Engineering Services Team Lead Bob Neale.
“I look at this project as stage two of our stage one, stage two process,” Neale said.
“In 2012 we brought in a new 600 millimetre line up from Calgary. It was intended to help with growth and redundancy within our existing system. This allows us to grow out to our pre-annexation boundary.”
Council approved the annexation of 12,640 acres of Rocky View County land in 2012.
As outlined in the Airdrie City Plan, the statutory document that guides development of Airdrie, the City’s Planning Department projects a population of 90,000 will be reached in 2027 to 2031.
Funding for both the building of the new plant and bringing the water line to Airdrie from Calgary in 2012 came from developer levies, according to Lorne Stevens, director of Community Infrastructure.
“It’s almost like every development happening pays for a little piece of the reservoir to serve the needs of new housing,” he said.
The budget for the water treatment plant was $12 million, but came in under budget.
Ensuring the building housing the plant blended into the surrounding landscape and residential area, Neale said the City worked with the area’s developer, Mattamy Homes.
“We worked many long hours with our community partner, Mattamy Homes, to be able to pull it together. (We considered) things like interfacing with the future lots to the south, interfacing with the lots to the west. We have arterial roads on two sides of the project,” he said.
“Integrating into the community means things like what’s it going to look like? How tall is it going to be? What kind of exterior cladding is going to go on the outside? I think we did a pretty good job. It’s a pretty nice looking building and functional.”
Facilities co-ordinator with the Public Works department Kelly McKeague said he’s thrilled the plant is open. He and the rest of the staff can monitor the plant either from on site or remotely using special computer software.
“This (plant) runs in conjunction with all of our other plants so it’s not that we’re here 24/7, but we’re at one of them all day long,” McTeague said.
“We’ll come here, do what we have to do, move onto the next one – we have our rounds that we do everyday.”
