By Steve Hubrecht
The District of Invermere has been busy in recent years with several big infrastructure improvement projects — notably badly needed water and sewer upgrades — and more are in the works.
Council received its infrastructure priority plan from planning consultants Urban Systems Ltd. during a recent committee of the whole meeting. The plan outlines major future infrastructure priorities for Invermere in the near term, medium term, and long term.
The near-term priorities (given a one-to-five-year time horizon in the plan) include replacing the Fort Point Bridge (which has been the subject of several Pioneer reports in the past); raising the height of the Paddy Ryan Reservoir dams and spillways; and four water, sewer or road upgrade projects — a sewer trunk main along the railway tracks on the northwest side of Dorothy Lake; a new water pump at Mount Nelson Athletic Park (MNAP); water pipe and road improvements along main street (7th Avenue) between 13th Street and 14th Street (from Disfunction Junction to the dental clinic); and sewer and road improvements for the unpaved stretch of 9th Avenue immediately to the west of Pothole Park.
Invermere chief administrative officer Andrew Young explained that raising the height of the dams at Paddy Ryan Reservoir (there are three dams in total) and upgrading the spillway is being done in response to climate change concerns and the associated risk of heavy rain events.
“We depend on the Paddy Ryan Reservoir as part of our water supply,” said Young.
The near-term priority water, sewer and road projects are similar to those undertaken over the past few years along 13th Avenue. Although the near-term priority projects are necessary, none are as urgent as the 13th Avenue upgrades.
The sewer pipe along the northwest side of Dorothy Lake “is one of the pinch points in the sewer system,” said Young. “It is an undersized length of pipe and it is a long pipe . . . the great thing is that it will be easy to get at — we don’t have to dig up the street.”
The plan lists three medium-term priority projects (given a five-to-10-year time horizon): replacing the Paddy Ryan Reservoir water line; improving lift station three on the eastern side of the Fort Point neighbourhood; and replacing the Castlestone bridge.
There are also six longer-term priority projects (given a 10-to-20-year time horizon): improving lift station one at Kinsmen Beach; improving lift station two in Fort Point; upgrading sewer pipes and the road on the northernmost end of 10th Avenue; upgrading sewer and water pipes and the roads on 9th Avenue, 10th Avenue and 11th Avenue in the Wilder neighbourhood; similar upgrades in the southern tip of Fort Point; and at the northern end of Fort Point along Lakeview Lane.
The cost of the projects in the one-to-five-year time horizon should average out to $2.3 million per year, but that total will be partly offset by the 13th Avenue upgrades that have already been completed (which cost $5 million).
“It is also hoped that as additional projects happen that some of the cost could be covered by developers instead of by the district alone,” said Young.
Invermere councillor Gerry Taft added that the order of prioritization could be tweaked if development partners come forward or with grant funding.
The near-term priorities are “relatively affordable and relatively easy to understand in terms of prioritization” said Taft.
“The further away the time horizon gets, the more the priorities may adjust. Once you go beyond the five-to-10-year time horizon, there’s more uncertainty about when exactly those projects may happen.”