Regina water expansion wraps early – and under budget

A water network expansion that gives Regina capacity for 310,000 people has been completed ahead of schedule and under budget.

The City of Regina gave media a tour of the Redbear Avenue Pumping Station, which became operational last December. Next to it are two new reservoirs that increase the city’s water-storage capacity by 50 per cent.

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The three-year project also included 8.4 kilometres of new water mains, mostly alongside the northeast segment of Ring Road.

“The great thing about how this was built is that it’s ready for expansion,” Mayor Chad Bachynski said. “It’s ready for growth.”

The facility, located off Fleet Street and Ross Avenue, can be expanded with more pumps, and there is room outside for three additional reservoirs.

That future expansion space would accommodate a population of 500,000.

“We have other areas that we are still catching up on, for sure. We’ve talked a lot about our wastewater infrastructure,” Bachynski said. “But this is a huge step today to handle a significant portion of that essential service that residents rely on every single day in terms of fresh water when they turn on the tap.”

The project was completed three months early, the city said, and approximately $17.5 million under budget.

“There’s absolutely takeaways,” Kurtis Doney, deputy city manager of city operations, said. “It really starts with the team, making sure we’ve got excellent city staff working on it, we’ve got a consultant and a contractor that can work together, and we’ve really laid out that plan and that schedule for the next three years to hit those milestones, excellent project management and making sure that we can reduce the risks to a project like this.”

Doney said the leftover money will be returned to reserves, but city council will have the opportunity to decide how it’s spent.

He also said the project went hand in hand with the recently completed expansion of the Buffalo Pound Water Treatment Plant, adding that this is the first new pump station built in Regina since the late 2000s.