The council of Fort Frances earlier this year spoke of the high cost of replacing the community’s infrastructure in Fort Frances. The original sewer in front of the newspaper office was made of clay. Men digging with shovels originally dug a trench about ninety centimeters wide down to a depth of over six meters. The original wood shaft sidings were still in place as the construction crew dug down on tapered slopes from sidewalk to sidewalk and still had steel section 3.5 meters tall at the bottom to protect workers joining the new pipe together. The old pipe was over one hundred years old.
It is only one block in town and the cost of replacing the pipes in the ground runs over one million dollars.
Every day we receive updates on the Calgary water crisis. The initial break has been repaired. Almost three hundred meters of pipe have been found defective. The size of the pipe is not carried in large quantities in the city. Pipe has been found as far away as San Diego. It will still take three to five weeks to repair the other pipe in the area. In the meantime, Calgarians and the city are facing economic and personal problems. The water shortage has brought about lifestyle changes.
We would like to think that this is a single event. It is not. Every town and city in north America are facing similar future crisis in their futures. Sewer and water pipes are not glamorous projects to place taxpayers’ money into. Arenas, parks, theatres are much easier to sell at election time. Sewer and water pipes are valuable to the citizens they impact but to the greater population those projects have little value.
One only must drive down Second Street to see and feel the water and sewer line breaks in our community. Much of our infrastructure is nearing its end-of-life cycle. The water break in Calgary was only half of its life cycle. Every town and city today must be wondering if the materials they used for water mains at the same time as Calgary will fail in an equivalent manner. It is a haunting thought.
If the primary water outlet in the water treatment plant broke and the community had to rely on the water in tower, how would we react to the shortage? How would the community react to the failure of the waste treatment plant?
With the age of much of Fort Frances’ underground infrastructure, councils will have to produce a method of accelerating its replacement. It will take leadership, tough skin, and broad shoulders to make the tough decisions. They can know that every municipal council will be forced to make similar decisions.
