On January 11 at the township of Emo council meeting, a representative from S. Burnett & Associates Limited (SBA), who is responsible for completing funding applications on behalf of the township, provided updates on various projects happening in town.
First brought to council’s attention were updates on the reconstruction of Florence Street caused by issues with stormwater management and infrastructure aging.
SBA aims to confirm designs by early spring and begin construction in the summer. A 66 per cent drawing set based on the town’s feedback should be completed within a week or two.
“The main thing is to get the [stormwater] draining right away and get it fixed up,” SBA said.
Despite supply management issues, they are optimistic about the direction of the project. “I think things are moving along nicely on that one.”
He said they have submitted an amendment to the government for funding to allow stormwater to be included as a provisional item but that an official confirmation on their request has not been received.
Another project, managed by Aqua Metrology Systems, looks to reduce THMs in drinking water to the acceptable level of 100 micrograms per litre of water.
“THMs, or trihalomethanes, are formed by organics in the natural raw water reacting with chlorine. So it’s a disinfection byproduct. It is something that can be carcinogenic,” said SBA.
The average of four samples, taken at every quatre of the year, must be below the guideline set by the province.
SBA said that Emo’s THM levels were “quite high” at one point in the summer, but now the average is below 100 as recommended.
“We have implemented THM Reduction in every community that we’re working with locally,” said SBA. “It’s the nature of the surface water, you will have organics in it. And this area seems to spike pretty high if you don’t have control of the operations and the chlorine levels.”
Various technologies have been looked at to find the most cost effective way to manage THMs in water. SBA said that further correspondence with the ministry will be needed.
Also brought to council’s attention was the subdivision agreement. Council discussed having a document outline the chronological history of the project to highlight phases of development.
SBA reported that the town is “significantly undersized” on storage for fire protection and although the town has an endless supply of water due to a nearby river, the town is “pushing the limits” with older technology since the last upgrade was around 10 years ago.
“But the storage component of it definitely should be a place marker in some future budgetary numbers because we are shy on total storage,” said SBA, who added that it’s something to keep an eye on and that hopefully the government will allocate funds for the project.
