A water infrastructure project in Vermilion passed through the hands of four different mayors has been completed.
The project entailed removing all of the cast iron water mains in the town and replacing them with modern PVC ones over a period of 25 years. Mayor Caroline McAuley says the project was funded completely by taxpayers money.
“I feel privileged to have had councils before me with a vision to do this and it’s why good leadership in communities is so important. It’s about setting vision for the future and making sure your community is strong and sustainable.”
Judy Woywitka was the sitting mayor at the time the project got off the ground. She says it was a team effort to get it started and to keep it going until the end.
“We had a really good group of people on council who had vision and we had a good administration that worked well with us and helped us make a plan. We had five year plans and we just carried it through. I thank the other mayors for hanging onto our vision and carrying it forward.”
McAuley adds not only does the finished project bring reliable clean water to residents homes but there are more benefits in the future.
“Because our community is over 100 years old, there was a lot of clay and cast iron and they were starting to fail.”
“We now have mapped it all out, so we know exactly how old the infrastructure is when it comes time for replacement down in the future. In the olden days they would have just dug a pipe in and weren’t really sure where to put it, somewhere in the road, but now we have it all mapped out.”
The town’s water mains are connected to the Alberta Central East (ACE) water lines which provides water to communities in the Counties of Two Hills, Minburn and Vermilion River. Earlier this summer, ACE was granted provincial funding to expand their lines further in the area.