By Adam Ophus

Clearwater County in full support

Budget triples for Leslieville School utilities work

Jul 25, 2019 | 9:01 AM

The new school being built in Leslieville has hit a road bump, now having to relocate a wastewater force-main and a natural gas line.

The lines need to be moved to run through the Leslieville School grounds to where the new building will sit.

Initially budgeted at $50,000, with new contractor quotes the project will now cost $174,140.

Clearwater County Public Works and Operations Director Kurt Magnus says there are several reasons for the significant jump in cost – the tight time frame, tendering so late in the year, only quoting a few contractors, and pipe and trucking costs have jumped.

Magnus expanded on the matter at a recent Clearwater County council meeting, and referenced his conversation with Wild Rose School Division Superintendent Brad Volkman.

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“When we looked at other options, we were looking at tying this into other projects, but when I spoke to Volkman he said, that they were among many other schools for the grant and needed to get it done,”

Wild Rose School Division has also communicated that the Alberta Education/Grants Department declared that the force-main relocation and the Condor lagoon upgrades had to be completed to keep their position as high priority for grant funding.

“I’ve called the representative from the province and told them that no matter what, we will be doing this, I wanted to let them know that we’re serious about this.” says Volkman

The Wild Rose School Division has been very impressed with Clearwater County and their help, with Volkman noting that the county has chosen to fully support the new school without even knowing if they will receive the grant or not.

“We’ve been very impressed with Clearwater County and their support, it really enhances our possibilities.” Volkman reiterated.

Clearwater County Council decided that getting the project done in 2019 was imperative, and agreed to reallocate an additional $124,140 from their Sewer Reserve to the Leslieville School Wastewater Force-main/Gas Line Relocation capital project.