Storm drainage projects that didn’t receive funding in the 2015 budget will still see a bit of advancement this year, as Rocky View County (RVC) council unanimously approved a budget of $500,000 to complete pre-engineering on the remaining projects, at their meeting on April 28.
“The projects that were all developed were identified on our storm drainage priorities policy, which was adopted by council last year,” said Byron Riemann, general manager of infrastructure and operations services with RVC.
According to Riemann, council allocated $400,000 from the 2015 operating budget to start some of the capital on the projects identified within the policy. However, he said since there won’t be any infrastructure work being done on the other projects, council felt they should be advanced as much as possible.
“Stormwater and drainage have been a very high priority for our council to focus on,” Riemann said. “They wanted to carry forward the momentum that started with development of that policy so that we can move ahead with better stormwater management.”
This additional budget adjustment will allow for the engineering and design work to be advanced on the remaining projects, so that if any other source of funding becomes available throughout the year, more work can progress.
Riemann said the work will also provide more information to area residents.
“What we consistently find is that when we do propose projects of this nature, dealing with stormwater, that landowners who may get impacted or want to see the impacts of us moving water want to see the engineering and design so they can fully understand – especially if we are looking for easements or right of way acquisitions,” Riemann added.
Projects that will be receiving pre-engineering work in 2015 include sections of Range Road 31A, Prairie Royal, Sharp Hills, Range Road 275, Township Road 264, Burma/Silverwoods, Range Road 32, Range Road 40, Country Lane Estates, Nieslon/Rolling Acres, Church Ranches and West Bragg Creek’s Highland subdivision.
“Once all that gets established and the engineering is completed, part of the evaluation will be to develop capital costing so that council can then make some decisions on how they want to fund the rest of those programs,” Riemann said.
Currently, the County has already begun looking at securing engineering resources, and Riemann said it will likely hire two or three consultants to ensure all projects are evaluated before the end of the year. Riemann anticipates the projects will then be discussed again in the 2016 budget conversations.
