Skip to content

Town water pipe electronic mapping and Darnell Road update

In advance of next year’s likely re-paving of South Shore Road, the town’s elected officials have approved of getting computerized mapping done of the town’s water distribution system of pipes.
6766lakecowichanWEB-Council-NagiDarnellRoad
The town’s superintendent of Public Works Nagi Rizk shows mayor and council a slide-show of what has been done at Darnell Road this past year

In advance of next year’s likely re-paving of South Shore Road, the town’s elected officials have approved of getting computerized mapping done of the town’s water distribution system of pipes.

While addressing many of the town’s water distribution concerns or problems, superintendent of Public Works Nagi Rizk said that crews do not have comprehensive enough information.

“The best way to come back to you definitively is through the water model,” Rizk said, while pitching the hydraulic model to the town’s elected officials, during a Tuesday, June 21, committee meeting.

Rizk hopes to rip up sections of South Shore Road over the course of the next year, in order to make repairs and to take preventative measures in advance of next year’s potential re-paving of the road.

“Without the water model, the solution is to put 10-inch pipes everywhere,” he said, adding that such a measure would be cost prohibitive.

The last water model was done in 1993, and is now quite out of date.

“There are a lot of question marks,” Rizk said, urging council to okay the project as soon as possible. “What is hinging on that work is time sensitive.”

Work must be done in July and August, he said. If it’s not done this year, it’ll have to be done next year, which will likely be too late to be done in advance of South Shore Road’s re-paving.

The town had budgeted $160,000 towards South Shore Road and any underground pipe work that may have to be done.

“It seems to me this is an important part of it,” mayor Ross Forrest said, of the water model.

With council’s unanimous approval, $25,000 is being taken out of the South Shore Road budget, to be put toward phase one of the water model.

Phase two, which comes at a cost of approximately $30,000, will hopefully come through grants, Rizk said.

The project will electronically map not only the South Shore Road area of pipes, but the entire town.

Darnell Road update

The upgrades to Darnell Road have been pretty well completed, the town’s superintendent of Public Works Nagi Rizk told mayor and council during their Tuesday, June 21, committee meetings.

Pending the co-operation of one more property owner, and repairs to the sprinkler system, they will be complete, he said.

The Darnell Road project was over-budget in 2010, costing $205,629, well above its budgeted $120,000.

Rizk said that, by the time it’s complete, the project will be under its 2011 budget of $60,000.

The road upgrade is part of the town’s downtown revitalization project, and incorporated an underground sprinkler system, rain garden component, and a sidewalk, in addition to the repaving of the aging road itself.