MELFORT – On Dec. 11, city council approved $88,000 to fix the Northcott Lift station.
The Northcott Lift Station, located at 106 Northcott Avenue West, was installed in the mid-1960’s and refurbished between 2009 and 2010, and needs to be rebuilt according to City of Melfort administration.
Director of Public Works, Lydia Steffen said, “Infrastructure and assets are regularly reviewed to determine their overall health and longevity. With proper maintenance we try to project and incorporate repair and replacement work into the overall asset management plan to avoid negatively impacting operations. Unfortunately, like most other communities, a significant amount of our public infrastructure is aging and in poor condition. By responsible management of our infrastructure costs, we try to build expenses into our regular budget to make expenses predictable and as low as possible.”
The Northcott Lift Station, which forms part of the city’s wastewater system, was identified as infrastructure in need of repair.
Steffen said, “When the wastewater from households, businesses, and other facilities leaves a building, it flows through the community's sanitary sewer system to a wastewater treatment facility where it is treated by a variety of processes to reduce or remove pollutants. The City of Melfort uses lift stations to help move wastewater from lower to higher elevations. Alternate options would be expensive based on Melfort’s topography. Underground gravity sewer systems require costly excavation and trench shoring techniques. Pumping wastewater, like we do, can convey similar results while reducing costs.”
The City of Melfort requires numerous lift stations throughout the city to move the wastewater. “If a lift station fails, wastewater would collect in the lift station wet well and eventually back up into the collection system. With this rehabilitation work on the Northcott lift station, we are trying to eliminate that risk.”
