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Muni Morsels: Cove watermain getting replaced, subdivision of Lot 3 starts

Briefs from the July 29 council meeting
Bowen Island

July 29 was the last council meeting before the councillors’ sum­mer break. It was standing room only as residents of Bluewater and King Edward Bay filled the seats to hear municipal reports on the water systems. For that story see pages 1, 10 and 11. The following are briefs from the rest of the meeting.

 

Following last week’s council decisions to approve an agreement to lease Bowen Island Resilient Community Housing a section of Lot 3 of the Community Lands and to accept the Bowen Island Health Centre Foundation’s offer to buy a BIRCH-adjacent Lot 3 parcel (the offer is subject to compliance with the notice require­ments in the Community Charter), council voted to approve spend­ing up to $30,000 to prepare the area for subdivision (surveying, servicing and all that). Though the municipality is fronting the money, the other two organizations have agreed to each pay a third of the cost of subdivision.

In other watermain news, council voted to spend $50,000 to replace a portion of the Cove Bay Water System watermain on Cardena Drive. A report to council from chief financial officer Raj Hayre states that the asbestos cement pipe is “soft.” The money is to come from the Cove Bay reserve fund.

 

The thinking in replacing the pipe now is that as there’ll be road improvements along Cardena Road in the fall, and as the road lifes­pan will be longer than that of the pipe, it’s most cost-effective to replace the watermain now. Cove Bay water users will also not have to pay to rip up and replace the road, which they would have to do if the roadworks weren’t already scheduled.

An accurate lifespan of the watermain is hard to estimate said BIM’s interim director of engineering, Glen Shkurhan, in the meet­ing, but he said that anytime you hear that an asbestos cement pipe is soft, it’s a ticking timebomb. Shkurhan also stated there is no waterborne danger from the asbestos.

The section of the watermain to be replaced is just in the section of road that’s getting worked on this fall. Several hundred metres of watermain further along Cardena will be a future project.