The Town of Westlock will begin to repair damage to municipal infrastructure following last month’s overland flood.
At council’s Sept. 12 meeting, councillors voted to approve up to $125,000 worth of repairs to infrastructure such as catch basins, culverts and storm manholes that were damaged during the Aug. 22 flood.
Council will make an application to the provincial government under the Disaster Recovery Program in hopes of recouping the funds.
“It’s a grant program, is really how the province looks at it,” said CAO Dean Krause.
“We expend the money to repair the damages from the flood, then we submit all of that to the province. They review and decide what expenses of that they would pay for.”
Council was presented with high and low estimates for costs which range from $83,000 to $125,000.
“We lost gravel off our gravel roads as it washed away and our drainage ditches got filled full of silt and gravel and they all need cleaning,” Krause said.
“Catch basins, basically the amount of water going through them, just collapsed. Just old infrastructure.”
The report states that damage was mainly limited to the town’s storm-water system and to catch basin structures and culverts.
In total, 15 catch basins, or storm drains, are in need of replacement, at an estimated cost of $2,500-$4,000 each, while $30,000-$50,000 will be needed to repair roads.
“Administration has done some preliminary estimates for repairing of infrastructure damaged during our flood,” said Krause.
“What administration is asking is authorization to proceed with those repairs.”
Also included in the application was $6,000 to replace damaged fire department equipment.
Once the amount is tallied up, the municipality will make application to the government and Krause estimates it will take anywhere from three to nine months for the government to review the claim.
