Facing an inconsistent water supply, some residents in a far corner of Foothills County are taking another look at paying for a pipeline.
Several homeowners, who live along Highway 762 northwest of Millarville, are exploring options to have water piped to their homes from a nearby water treatment plant and bulk fill station.
Residents and County officials met in April to look at rough costs, potential routes and the process for a pipeline to be built, said Suzanne Oel, councillor for the area, following up on an earlier meeting about water and fire services.
The pipeline could be built as a local improvement project, funded by benefiting property owners through a special tax, Oel said.
“At this point, people were more interested in getting information but not necessarily were ready to express interest in getting a local improvement done,” she said.
She said that residents, not the County, would initiate the project.
“Because there are citizens who are interested in service and citizens who are not interested in service, we're providing background information,” Oel said.
There could be several pipeline segments or pockets of service, and more than one local improvement request, to avoid impacting those who are not interested in the service, she said.
Discussions are early in the process, and residents would submit a petition to the County to begin the project, Oel said.
Two-thirds of those affected would need to be in support of the project, and other requirements would need to be met, Oel added.
She declined to give a cost estimate, and said plans need to be refined before numbers can be shared.
“It really depends on the legs of it, and so we did share numbers with them, but it is based on how many of those lots would actually connect,” she said.
Earlier pipeline proposals looked at servicing a larger area, but a lack of available grant funding means most of the interest is from people who live closer to the treatment plant and would expect to have lower costs, Oel said.
