Rocky View County (RVC) council approved a Mutual Termination Agreement with the Muirfield Group at its regular meeting on Dec. 9, which means RVC will stop providing wastewater servicing to the Wheatland County development as of February 1, 2015.
The County has been trucking wastewater from the Lakes of Muirfield from the Hamlet of Dalroy to the Chestermere lift station since 2008, after the original plans to create a sanitary pipe from Dalroy to the Langdon Wastewater Treatment Plant stalled due to the economic downturn in 2009.
“This is an agreement based on what had been moving forward at the time, but a lot of the development aspirations that were being discussed for that area did not materialize,” said Byron Riemann, infrastructure and operations manager with RVC.
“This has resulted in the County incurring a lot of costs that were not being charged back to the Muirfield residents.”
According to RVC administration, providing this service has cost the County approximately $250,000 per year. Riemann said RVC had been looking into possible alternatives for years, but was unable to find an appropriate solution.
“We were going to have to either do a full cost recovery, for which we would have had to raise rates substantially, or terminate the existing agreement,” Riemann said. “Muirfield Village has found another source to deal with their effluent, so they are moving forward on that.”
Although termination of services is planned for February 1, Riemann said the agreement provides provisions to allow a 60-day extension where RVC will continue to offer wastewater servicing at the current cost.
After the 60 days, the development will need to find a different receiving plant, but according to Riemann, RVC would provide the trucking and charge the Muirfield Group directly for the cost.
“This may happen due to delays with their construction,” said Riemann.
Representatives from the Muirfield Group were unavailable for comment as of press time.
RVC administration said they are “confident” the alternative solution will be in place by mid-2015. According to Riemann, the termination agreement will be a benefit to both counties.
“Anytime you have taxpayer support dollars going towards an entity outside of County jurisdiction, it’s a benefit when you’re not spending that money anymore,” Riemann said.
“That money was coming out of our general operating funds, so it will be a savings that will be reallocated to some other service level required by the County.”
