Village of Keremeos maintenance personnel, along with Summerland contractors Suck it Up fixed a problem with the village’s Sixth Street sewage lift station last week.
Maintenance personnel had identified the problem at the lift station last year, discovering a leak in a stainless steel pipe connecting the main sewage line with the lift station pump.
The Suck it Up contractors were in the village before Christmas last year, cleaning and inspecting three of the village’s four stations. They returned on January 13 to assist village outside staff in the replacement of the failed pipe.
“The pipe in question – which cost the village an unanticipated $4,500 – was a three inch stainless steel pressure pipe,” village foreman Jordy Bosscha said. “The pipe was installed in 1982.”
Suck it Up performed assessments on the other lift stations in the village, out of a budget money established in the 2013 financial plan.
“We are looking at rebuilding the steel inside each station,” Bosscha said, “the pumps are serviced annually, but the piping, fittings and valves all need to be replaced.”
Bosscha said once a list of materials is established, the village will be seeking quotes.
The failed pipe and the need to rebuild the village’s lift stations are signs that Keremeos is not immune to a malady plaguing the nation’s municipalities – that of aging infrastructure.
“The failure of that stainless steel pipe,” said Bosscha, “wasn’t supposed to happen.”
Keremeos is currently faced with potentially high capital expenditures on two fronts as the village continues to seek higher level government funding in order to proceed with necessary construction of new infrastructure in the form of a sewer extension into the upper bench area.
At the same time, efforts are ongoing in annual budget planning to put together sufficient reserves to replace infrastructure known to be reaching the end of its service life, such as aging water mains in the downtown core.
Premature failures such as the sewage lift station pipe add to the tax burden, and they are a wildcard – difficult to predict and therefore hard to budget for.
Aging infrastructure is a concern nation wide, in all developed countries, said the Canadian Infrastructure Report Card, published in part by the Federation of BC Municipalities, in 2012.
The Association of Consulting Engineers of Canada estimated in 2004 that 50 per cent of public infrastructure will have reached the end of its service life by 2027.
How best to invest in infrastructure to maintain competitiveness and standards of living is a big question facing governments of all levels today.
Findings also show about 30 per cent of municipal infrastructure is assessed as between fair and very poor, and that many municipalities lack the capacity to manage their infrastructure.
The complete report card can be viewed at: http://www.fcm.ca/Documents/reports/Canadian_Infrastructure_Report_Card_EN.pdf
