The cities of Morden and Winkler and the R.M. of Stanley are joining forces to explore a temporary solution to Morden's wastewater processing capacity shortage.
The three municipalities have come together as a region to launch a feasibility study examining the possibility of Morden hooking into Winkler's expanded wastewater treatment facility to process its surplus effluent once it comes online, likely in 2026.
"That happens during winter storage where we max out in our capacity," said Morden Mayor Nancy Penner.
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There is one logistical option, in particular, that's being considered.
"The upgrade is, of course, including Stanley's wastewater building connecting to Winkler's plant, so there would be a pipe going right by it," explained Penner. "It would mean we would make a small pipe to hook up to the Stanley pipe. It gets very technical from that point, and I'm not going to go into the details because that's where the engineers come in."
Penner stressed, this concept is just being considered at the moment and officials continue to review the logistics.
She noted, if feasible, this plan would open up the city's development going forward until it has its own long-term solution in place.
"We just can't sit idly." - Winkler Mayor Henry Siemens
Winkler Mayor Henry Siemens also emphasized that this conversation is in the very early stages.
"But we just can't sit by idly while Morden continues to struggle with this and not try absolutely everything we can to help the region continue to grow in a health way," he added. "Maybe there's something we can do to help out for a period time."
Ike Friesen, Reeve for the R.M. of Stanley added, "We are one community, and we want to work together if possible."
Siemens noted, when the expanded plant comes online in 2026, not all of its processing capacity will be used.
"It's built to take us to a population of about twenty-five thousand people. We think that will likely take us to about 2040 or so, so we will have some spare capacity. So, in discussion, we thought maybe we could take some of the excess wastewater that comes from Morden and, is there a possibility to do that for five years?"
The feasibility study will not only explore logistical options, but also their cost and the impact to Winkler's overall lagoon operations.
"We don't know if it'll work," admitted Siemens. "Very early indications from our engineering department (and) Morden's engineering department suggest there is a possibility that it could work."
He expects more clarity around these questions in the next three to five months.
With files from Robyn Wiebe and Alexander Peters