Residents on Cove Place are unhappy with how Chestermere Utilities Inc. (CUI) is handling the upcoming repairs to copper water lines in their cul-de-sac.
“Nobody was pleased with the letter,” said Bob Burton, one of the residents on Cove Place.
“You can’t just run over people, that’s just not going to happen,” he said.
Residents understand the need to replace the copper lines which are aging and leaking significant amounts of water into the ground in their area.
What is upsetting them is the way CUI informed them of the repairs and the short notice they were given of both a meeting with residents on July 19 and the limited time they had to decide whether to opt in to have the water lines on their property replaced at the same time as the public lines.
CUI CEO Leigh-Anne Palter admits that they could have handled communication with the residents better.
“Everybody knows they’ve got a pill to swallow but I believe her first attempt at this cul-de-sac she’s going to have a difficult time,” said Burton.
“I appreciate that the letter did have the response that was intended,” said Palter.
This was the first time that CUI has tried to take a more proactive approach to communicating with residents on a broad-based issue.
Palter said she has learned from this and will handle communication with the public better next time.
“I will readily admit that the first time out of the gate with this we’ve learned a lot,” she said.
The communication issue has arisen because CUI has identified an increasing problem with the copper water service lines in Chestermere.
The copper lines are known to have been installed in Chestermere as recently as the late 1990s.
These lines are beginning to corrode and, in some cases, are leaking large quantities of water into the surrounding ground.
“We’ve seen the incidences of leaks increase exponentially,” said Palter.
Last year CUI identified and repair five leaks. So far this year they have had 14.
“In speaking to a number of local corrosion experts we are now aware that it’s a sign of what’s to come,” she said.
These leaks are costing CUI and by extension the city and its residents a significant amount each year.
Because of these leaks, CUI is planning to start a copper services replacement project.
Along with the replacement of the leaking lines, an anode will be installed to help prevent future corrosion.
Like in a home hot water heater, a sacrificial anode will be installed which will corrode over time instead of the pipes.
As part of this replacement plan, CUI issued residents on Cove Place a letter notifying them of the meeting on July 19.
The letter also gave residents the option to participate in a program to have their private lines replaced while the contractor was already working in the area and the roads and driveways were dug up.
The cost to residents was not specifically stated in the letter however Burton and other residents said that if they opted in it could cost them upwards of $6000-$10,000.
By getting the private work done alongside the public work, residents were told they would likely be able to save money compared to what it would cost them to replace the lines at some other time in the future.
In the letter, residents were given until July 21 to make their decision.
Burton said that in reading the letter, residents felt that they were being bullied into accepting the CUI offer.
“When you go to somebody and you try to force feed them something if you give them all the circumstances surrounding it, you’ve done your due diligence, you show them every option…it then becomes palatable, but that letter and everything they did, no chance,” said Burton.
Residents are also unhappy that they have to foot the bill to repair the lines that connect to their homes when as home owners they were not given a say when the copper lines were first installed by the developer.
“Whether the city services guys or the city contractor, they put the copper water line in,” said Burton, “they went on, private property if you will, put in a copper water line.
“The contractors working on the house had to hook to it.”
Burton and the residents feel that regardless of the reason the pipes are corroding responsibility for the repairs should fall to the city for installing it in the first place.
“They put it in,” said Burton, “none of the homeowners put it in.”
“None of the homeowners asked for it to be put it but now every homeowner is being held accountable for either the poor quality of work or the failure to cathodically protect the copper,” he said, “and that’s just not fair.”
When the residents, CUI staff, including Palter, and the CUI contractor met on July 19, the face-to-face conversation addressed many of the residents’ concerns.
Additionally, several options for checking the lines were suggested by the residents.
Some of these ideas were knew to CUI staff. Palter left the meeting promising to get her staff to research these methods to see if they would be feasible in Chestermere.
“I can confirm that we are doing are research on the smart pigging technology that one of the gentlemen who was present had mentioned,” she said.
They are also looking into potential alternative contractors who may be able to offer different services for the necessary public repairs and optional private ones.
“Those are still both works in progress and we hope to have our due diligence around that completed very early next week,” said Palter.
While the CUI works on completing this research, the repairs on the Cove Place copper lines, which were originally scheduled for the week of July 24, have been put on hold.
“We want to make sure that people have confidence that we’ve explored every reasonable option,” she said.
“If that’s what they’re doing I applaud the effort,” said Burton.
While happy to know that CUI was continuing to research solutions, Burton feels a better compromise on the repairs is needed.
His suggestion is that CUI handles the costs for replacing the water lines and leave the home owners to only cover replacing the concrete driveways that need to be torn up to access the service lines.
“It’s a compromise of 50-50,” he said.
“Right now it’s 100 cents on the dollar plus markup,” said Burton of the current deal.
Since the meeting Burton believes that CUI will approach their communication strategy better but believes that the homeowners will still be stuck with the bill for the replacement on their side of the property line.
“If they have the spirit of compromise and they have the spirit of trying to get along with the citizens here great,” he said.
