Arran-Elderslie is inviting the community to public information centres Thursday on improving municipal storm water systems– and possible related costs.
The municipality is looking at how to pay for needed infrastructure improvements to handle heavy rainfall.
There’s a possibility the work could be paid for through a user fee for those on the urban systems, in Chesley, Paisley and Tara.
The municipality says in a notice, it’s, “considering the implementation of a stormwater utility, which would impose a levy on users of the urban stormwater system to create a dedicated fund for constructing, operating, and maintaining stormwater infrastructure.”
Mayor Steve Hammell says, “Since all Arran-Elderslie residents do fund our stormwater right now, it does pertain and is a very large item for all residents. There’s $4.5 million in priority upgrades needed. So this is a meeting for everybody. It’s a starter meeting to have a presentation from our Arran-Elderslie staff. Engineers will be there to go through the studies that have been completed for all three major centres, Tara Chesley and Paisley and those will be at all three of the public meetings.”
Hammell adds, “It is a good meeting for anyone that wants to learn a little, or anyone that has questions and then we’ll get into a few more details at those meetings and a great opportunity for questions and dialogue after.”
A staff report to council in Monday’s agenda explained GSS Engineering was hired to do a stormwater needs study for Chesley, Paisley and Tara and find where flooding issues may arise. GSS has now suggested where improvements could be made and the possible costs associated with it.
GSS looked at a potential once in roughly five-years storm (20 per cent chance of it happening in a given year) with heavier rainfall than usual and has mapped out areas that could either have flood or fill pipes to capacity or near capacity. It also looked at the system’s ability to handle a one in one-hundred years storm.
The study identifies streets that could use storm water infrastructure improvements for when road construction projects come up and other parts of the systems that need improvement to handle heavy rainfall.
GSS recommends putting away $200,000 a year for storm sewer system upgrades in Paisley, $100,000 a year in Tara, and $300,000 a year in Chesley.
The estimated cost to fully replace Tara’s stormwater system is about $5.6 million. To focus on priority areas is $1.8 million.
In Paisley, the estimated cost of replacement is $3.5 million , or if focusing on ten priority upgrades, $1.8 million.
Chelsey would be $3.8 to replace and $750,000 to focus on priority upgrades.
In all, the total cost estimate to replace the stormwater infrastructure in all three villages is about $13 million. To do priority upgrades only, it would be about $4.5 million.
Each community has a scheduled meeting on Thursday, September 25th:
Paisley Community Centre
391 Queen Street North, Paisley
2:00 PM – 3:30 PM
Chesley Community Centre
129 4th Avenue SE, Chesley
4:00 PM – 5:30 PM
Tara Community Centre
150 Hamilton Street, Tara
6:00 PM – 7:30 PM