Bringing fire protection to the Sturgeon Valley would cost almost $12 million according to a report presented to county councillors last week.
Sturgeon councillors received the report from Sameng Engineering at their May 26 council meeting. It indicates extensive upgrades will be needed to give the area full fire protection.
The necessary upgrades would include 124 new fire hydrants to bring the spacing between hydrants up to code. Upgrades would also be needed at both the Summerbrook and Allin Ridge pumping stations.
The county would need to expand the Allin Ridge reservoir, which would cost approximately $2 million. The priciest upgrade would be to the network of pipes in the valley at a cost of nearly $7 million.
Sameng’s engineers revealed the current pipes network delivers 55 to 60 litres per second, depending on the area of the valley.
EPCOR recommends a minimum flow rate of 100 litres per second for fire fighting.
County fire Chief Bart Clark said the hydrants are little more than lawn ornaments and county crews wouldn’t even attempt to hook onto them in a fire.
“They don’t have the necessary fire flows and pressures to support a fire pumper.”
He said a structure fire in the valley would require two departments to respond with all of their resources. Clark said crews bring the water with them and then start shuttling to fill-up stations to keep the pumpers full. He said hydrants would reduce the department’s manpower needs and create a stable source of water.
Newly minted councillor Tom Flynn said he was impressed with the engineering report and believes it will be helpful in charting a course for the valley.
“It gave me a lot of very good information about what is there and raises some of the choices for the future so we can put it in front of the public further down the road.”
Council voted to accept the report as information and start up a public consultation on the process this fall.
Flynn said valley residents will likely bear at least part of the project costs and they have to be consulted first.
“It is going to have to end up in the hands of the people in the valley where they make a choice of what they want to pay for.”
He said there were a lot of misconceptions about the problem and the report should clear those up. He said many valley residents only found out after the fact they wouldn’t have the service.
“Especially those that came from an urban environment and built a million-dollar home, they probably just assumed they had all the same protections they had in the city.”
Sturgeon Mayor Don Rigney said he welcomes the report and is disappointed the communities weren’t built with the fire capacity in the first place.
Rigney said council has to look at the issue, but there is still good fire coverage in the valley.
“We can still bring a lot of effort to bear on a fire in pretty short order,” he said. “To say that there is a disaster waiting to happen here would be absolutely false.”
