Great Falls water-treatment plant faces critical vote

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This article was published 09/02/2018 (3086 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A former Manitoba Hydro community along the Winnipeg River that was promised a new water system when it was transferred to the RM of Alexander is hoping today is that day.

But opposition has flared up against a proposed $5-million water-treatment plant for the village of Great Falls, and efforts to provide drinking water dating back two decades seem to be headed for failure.

The motion for a water-treatment plant goes before a special public council meeting today, and it appears the vote will be a tie, which will mean defeat. The motion had majority support on the five-person Alexander government before one councillor was diagnosed with cancer and stepped down prior to Christmas.

The public meeting is being held in the municipal office in St. Georges, starting at 2 p.m.

“It was a jewel on the Winnipeg River and Manitoba Hydro gave it to Alexander because it didn’t want the responsibility,” Alexander Reeve Ray Garand said of Great Falls.

That was in 1987. Manitoba Hydro paid the RM, which was a local government district at the time, a total of $50,000 as part of the agreement (the equivalent of $94,000 today when adjusted for inflation).

The agreement included the proviso that the RM replace the village’s water distribution system by 2013.

The community of roughly 200 has a treatment system run by the provincial electric power and natural gas utility that’s a half-century old and doesn’t meet Canadian drinking water standards. Residents have been under a boil-water advisory for the past 12 years.

Great Falls was established in the early 1920s when the Winnipeg Electric Railway Company was building a power generating station on the Winnipeg River. The community is located about 120 kilometres northeast of Winnipeg, along Highway 11, north of Lac du Bonnet. It has 82 homes, all of which have signed up for the proposed new water system, at a cost of $6,000 per home.

There are also nine hookups for Manitoba Hydro buildings in the townsite.

The Manitoba Water Services Board has agreed to pay $2.5 million of the cost, and Manitoba Hydro would pay $1.5 million. The Crown corporation put aside $750,000 for the water-treatment plant in 2004, but recently agreed to increase the sum.

The village would put up about $500,000 (from household hookup fees) and the RM would chip in the remaining $500,000 — using $100,000 per year over five years out of the roughly $160,000 per year federal gas tax revenues.

Garand called the deal “unheard of,” and the only one where ratepayers are only on the hook for 10 per cent of the cost. Normally, a municipality is required to pay one-third of the cost for a water system, he said. “I think its the best deal we could have ever done.”

But Coun. Jack Brisco, who said he will vote against the proposal today, questions why other RM residents should pay for a water system in Great Falls.

“We’re not part of that area at all, but they want our tax money to pay for it,” he said.

“You’re taxing people at the beach (on Lake Winnipeg), where I’m from. I’ve only talked to one person who’s for it. Most people I’ve talked to are dead against it.”

Brisco also complained the cost of the project has risen from $3.5 million initially, to the latest figure of $5 million.

The other councillor said to oppose the water system, Gerry Dupont, did not respond to messages left by the Free Press.

Garand countered that many projects are paid for by the entire RM, which runs from Grand Marais to Lee River.

“A community is not just your backyard, but all around you,” he said.

For example, the RM is currently building a $1.6-million boat launch in Traverse Bay, which is in Brisco’s Ward 1. The entire RM is paying for it, not just Ward 1, the reeve said.

As well, the RM is legally obligated to provide Great Falls with water under the agreement signed with Manitoba Hydro.

“We’re in default already,” Garand said.

In addition, the reeve said more people living between Great Falls and Pine Falls are likely to want to hook up once the water system is in place and those revenues would subtract from the RM’s costs.

Jim McNeill, spokesman for the Great Falls residents, expressed frustration the water project may be defeated.

“We would lose a lot of money,” McNeill said, calling the contributions from the province and Manitoba Hydro “a windfall.”

“When you do a business deal, you look for a win-win-win situation. This is a perfect example of one of those.”

bill.redekop@freepress.mb.ca