The City of Morden continues to look at all options for addressing wastewater treatment, and one such alternative could be finding suitable land outside of the city.
The possibility of one location being in the RM of Roland has stirred up chatter locally recently, but Morden Mayor Nancy Penner cautioned it is nothing more than exploratory at the moment.
Inquiries have been made with a number of land owners, but there is nothing concrete on the table, she said.
“We have nothing to confirm because nothing is finalized … but we’ve talked to a number of farmers who happen to be in the RM of Roland.”
One challenge faced by the city is that its current lagoon location would not be sufficient to meet the necessary criteria, so the city is exploring all other options for expansion, including possible sites outside of city limits.
“Right now, we have nothing to report because nothing is firm … until we have secured land and we have land that meets our requirements,” Penner said. “We’re looking everywhere.”
Penner added if or when they have a proposal on the table, there would be a long approval process involved before the project could proceed. That process would give the public time to weigh-in on the potential site and voice any concerns.
“Any offer to purchase will be conditional on all of the requirements being met … if all those conditions aren’t met, there’s no sale,” Penner said. “We’re looking for the right land, and we haven’t found it … we haven’t gotten far enough down the road to make sure an offer on land meets all the criteria that we need to meet.”
The Voice reached out to RM of Roland Reeve Jodi Gaultier for comment, but had not received a response at press time. Gaultier has told other local media her council has not yet been officially contacted by the City of Morden about this matter.
Meanwhile, financing the wastewater treatment project continues to be a challenge for Morden, with spiralling costs and funding shortfalls having council taking another look at its options.
The city thought it had found the answer last May when evaluations for upgrading the wastewater treatment system determined a lagoon-based moving bed biofilm reactor (MBBR) treatment system was the recommended option based on a cost estimate of $70 million. Over the summer and into late fall of 2023, an engineering firm continued design work on the project, but it came with preliminary design costs ranging from $88 million to $108 million.
