Picture Butte council discusses 4th Street project

By Kenyon Stronski
Sunny South News

The construction on Picture Butte’s 4th Street remains a hot topic, with many members of the community eagerly counting the days until the project is finally complete. Updates are given regularly on the town’s website, picturebutte.ca and the latest update comes from Sept. 9. New sanitary main lines and manholes have been installed and completed, a new storm infrastructure has been installed including a new storm line, catch basins and manholes, and the fire hydrant has been relocated. Still left to do is the removal of the sidewalk, preparation for sidewalk installation, sidewalk installation, and preparation of road surface and paving. Work is looking to be completed tentatively by the end of September.

At the Sept. 12 regular meeting of council, most conversation on the CAO report surrounded the 4th Street construction, including the potential installation of a drip-line to water trees after being proposed by Deputy Mayor Henry de Kok.

CAO Keith Davis explained pricing was given, and it hovers around $10,000. “East Butte did provide pricing and it was around $10,000. All WSP was doing was saying it was a quote, that was it, they didn’t provide any design or anything. Just gave us a quote to put the conduit and the line in and they came back and it was about $10,000.”

Mayor Cathy Moore responded, commenting that it may not be the best to add any more projects to the construction of 4th Street, stating that it just needs to be finished.

“The more we try to add to it, the longer it’s going to take. I don’t know about you guys but I’ve had enough phone calls from business owners. This needs to be done, and I think we just need to get our nose down.”

While it would help with watering, and potentially save the town money down the road, de Kok said the drip line wouldn’t be a necessity to install, but something does need to be done with the watering of trees.

“If we’re not going to put a dripper system in for this or for new trees in the future then we need to invest in a way bigger water tank with a three-inch waterline rather than just a garden hose so that it doesn’t take an hour to put 200 litres around each tree. Then at least you can go to a tree and then five minutes later you’re finished, but I saw by the green strip it’s taking them forever to water a tree with their tiny little water tank.”

Communication and keeping citizens up-to-date remains an important plan for the Town of Picture Butte. One that Moore wants to make sure stays strong.

“I just want to reiterate communication one more time, that we keep the lines of communication open to council, to our business owners. I see that our web page has been updated which is nice and it shows what’s happening with 4th Street, what’s going to happen, what hasn’t happened and when the project should be completed. I like that and it’s good, but we have to keep the business owners updated weekly on what’s going to happen and what’s not just so they are kept updated so they know what’s going on.”

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