St Malo development stalled by full lagoon

There is no room in St Malo’s lagoon for more toilets to be flushed into it.

A planned residential development is stalled until something is done to increase the community’s wastewater capacity. De Salaberry council voted at its last meeting to ask the Manitoba Water Services Board for a design of a new facility at a cost of $150,000, with half of that paid by the RM ($75,000 already in this year’s budget) and half by the water services board.

The seven proposed lots north of St Charles Road were conditionally approved by council in October.

The engineer report by KGS required by the province to prove St Malo’s lagoon had the capacity for more development came back saying some capacity can be added with some maintenance work through desludging and raising the dikes. A letter from KGS also said the residential development was small enough that it would have minimal impact and that while “not ideal,” the proposed development could be considered “given the advanced stage of planning…” It showed an effect of 0.6 percent on lagoon capacity.

But a report from municipal planner Jennifer Gilmore made it clear the province was not willing to sign off on the subdivision until more wastewater capacity is added saying De Salaberry administration met with representatives from the Environmental Compliance and Enforcement Branch, and Community and Regional Planning met and were told as much.

Otterburne in regional plant, St Malo out

That is why the St Malo utility committee asked council to approve moving forward on a new facility in St Malo, and why council approved it Aug. 6.

Otterburne will be flushing to the coming Red-Seine-Rat (RSR) Wastewater Co-operative. That facility near Niverville is estimated to cost up to $190 million and will be shared with the RMs of Tache, Ritchot, Hanover and the Town of Niverville. It is expandable and allows the building of 13,000 new housing units.

But Reeve Darrel Curé said that is probably not an option for De Salaberry’s community on the other side of the RM under current funding models.

“It doesn’t mean it’s not going to happen in the future but for today, the reason it didn’t happen is because of the cost to pipe it from St Malo to Niverville. It’s just too much money,” said Curé.

“I think joining the RSR was around $19 million for St Malo. That’s too much. The community’s too small to withstand that kind of investment.”

He explained that the average municipal tax bill in St Malo this year is about $2,000. Curé estimates that would go up to over $6,000 for each home on average.

“It would just cripple the community,” said Curé.

To save money on a multi-million dollar St Malo facility, according to the reeve, the Manitoba Water Services Board can pay half the cost of a new lagoon. He added the water services board cannot pay any of the cost to pipe it to a regional facility.

Canada Infrastructure Bank CEO Ehren Cory was in Niverville this March touting a loan from the federal agency of up to $84 million towards the RSR wastewater facility. It is estimated to cut CO2 emissions by 93 percent compared to lagoons.

— With files from Svjetlana Mlinarevic