Village of Big Valley council hears County of Stettler no longer providing services
In a phone call to the ECA Review June 24 Village Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) Colleen Mayne stated that the village received a two-week notice from the County of Stettler that the larger municipality would no longer be providing any services to the Village of Big Valley.
Mayne noted this will affect things like snow removal, water quality testing and lagoon monitoring.
When asked if this will affect the village’s budget Mayne responded it may result in the village hiring out services to contractors.
Lagoon’s condition better
Big Valley village council heard heartening news when it comes to their municipal lagoon, a piece of infrastructure that seemed to be surrounded only by bad news for months.
The lagoon update was presented at the June 17 regular meeting of council.
CAO Mayne related that she provided councillors with an update on MPE Engineering's work on the municipal lagoon.
Councillors heard at previous meetings the lagoon had issues stemming from late or missing provincial and federal reporting plus engineers spotted a crack in a berm.
Mayne reported that an emergency discharge was conducted the first week of June. She noted the municipality can conduct such a release up to twice a year, but Big Valley hasn’t apparently conducted a lagoon release since 2022.
Mayne also stated engineers had valid concerns that the emergency release, compounded by the fact the lagoon hadn’t been discharged in quite some time, may cause the crack to worsen.
However, the engineers sent good news regarding the discharge: it appears the emergency release caused no harm to the berm crack. In fact, according to the engineers, it appears the crack actually relaxed a bit.
It’s suspected that the crack may have been complicated by the fact the lagoon hadn’t been discharged in a while.
Mayne stated the councillors were happy to receive good news about the lagoon and accepted the report as information.
New Public Works staff
Mayne confirmed the village hired an acting Public Works foreman who has links to the community.
She noted the new employee is currently getting re-certified for water facility management.
Stu Salkeld, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, East Central Alberta Review
