After nine years of construction and a price tag of nearly $140 million, the City of Red Deer, Alberta, Canada celebrated the completion of the new South Red Deer Regional Wastewater System (SRDRWS) sewer pipeline with a ribbon-cutting ceremony on Oct. 16.

Work on the 90-kilometer pipeline started in 2006, and SRDRWS was able to begin operating it in July 2015. 

“It’s nice that this project is finally open and we’re fully operating it,” says Brian Spiller, mayor of the City of Innisfail, one of the communities that is served by the new pipeline. “Now we can work on (ironing out) the wrinkles of the operating costs itself. The capital project part is over with and it’s a celebration of that part of it. We’ll try our best to reduce the costs where we can.”

Source: Innisfail Province

Colorado Municipality Plans Water Pipeline Project
City of Thornton, Colorado, officials are moving forward with a plan that has been in the making since the mid-1980s to build a pipeline to move water from north of Fort Collins to the Thornton water treatment plant.

The city expects the pipeline to be between 55 to 65 miles long and potentially 48 inches in diameter. The maximum amount of water it could deliver to Thornton would be 14,000 acre-feet per year.

A preferred route for the pipeline could be identified by early next year, with an estimated start-time for construction in 2018, Thornton Water Project Director Mark Kolebar told the Coloradoan.

Thornton hired engineering firm CH2M to help plan and design its water pipeline project, which is expected to take about seven years to build and cost about $400,000.

Source: Coloradoan

Great Lakes Water Board Names First CEO
After a five-month nationwide search culminating in 178 candidates, the board of the new Great Lakes Water Authority selected Sue McCormick to be the agency’s first chief executive officer.

It boiled down to two finalists — McCormick, director of the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department and interim CEO of the suburban system, and Randy Moore, president of Iowa American Water, an investor-owned utility.

According to the Detroit Free Press, it is expected that McCormick will be replaced at the DWSD by Gary Brown, former Detroit chief operating officer who Mayor Mike Duggan nominated as director and the DWSD approved unanimously.

“For the last year, Sue’s leadership and experience have been invaluable for successfully establishing GLWA while simultaneously maintaining her role as director of DWSD organization,” board members Joseph Nardone and Brian Baker said in a statement. “With her appointment, and with Gary Brown recently named as director designate for the new DWSD retail organization, we have established clear executive roles to represent both entities, putting us one step closer to launch on Jan. 1.”

Source: Detroit Free Press