By Lara Fominoff @LaraFominoff on Twitter

Blood Tribe plans new resort development – Lethbridge City Council gives ok to provide water, wastewater services

Apr 1, 2019 | 6:13 PM

LETHBRIDGE – City Council has voted unanimously to allow for city water and wastewater services to be provided for a new commercial development on land in the north-east corner of the Blood Reserve near the intersection of Highway 509 and Highway 3. It’s not clear how large the project will be or when actual construction may get underway.

A Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) will also be signed by the City of Lethbridge, Lethbridge County and Town of Coalhurst, making the Blood Reserve a Lethbridge County water customer, and a wastewater customer of the Town of Coalhurst.

According to City documents, the Blood Tribe has completed an engineering feasibility study and a master plan. The development would include a new destination hotel and conference centre, an RV park and equestrian facility. In the future, there are plans for country residential development.

Lethbridge Water and Wastewater Manager Doug Kaupp told council on Monday, the city has the capacity to support the project, and there would be no impact on rates for Lethbridge city water customers. The City was approached last fall, he says to provide the services for the future development.

“Just like all other regional water and wastewater projects, the proponent, or the customers in the region pay the full freight, so there is no impact to the City of Lethbridge utility ratepayers. In this particular case, the MOU is required because of the number of jurisdictions involved. The strategy to deliver the services to that site leverage existing infrastructure, the water pipeline out to Monarch and the Town of Coalhurst’s system for pumping wastewater back into the city.”

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Kaupp added that any new infrastructure construction costs would be paid for by the Blood Tribe.

Both Lethbridge’s water and wastewater plants are currently undergoing upgrades to replace mechanisms that have either met or exceeded their lifespans, or that can’t meet current demand during certain parts of the year when some machinery has to be taken out of service. For example, the water treatment plant’s envelope needs to be expanded, so additional processing equipment like clarifiers can be added, at a cost of $5.55 million dollars (CIP Project E-18). Another $15 million Capital Improvement Plan (CIP) project will see upgrades to the plant to address environment impacts of releasing excess sludge from clarifiers, screen backwash and filter backwash water (CIP Project E-20).

Kaupp said at this point he’s not sure when the hotel/conference centre project will get underway, but is certain it won’t put any burden on the system.
“No… we’re talking about a hotel, and a campground and some other commercial stuff, so it wouldn’t compare to say, the south end of Mayor Magrath Drive or the Cavendish project. Those are much more significant.”

by Lara Fominoff @LaraFominoff on Twitter

Blood Tribe plans new resort development – Lethbridge City Council gives ok to provide water, wastewater services

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