RC104 JanFeb2023 - Magazine - Page 28
ASSET MANAGEMENT
FUTUREPROOFING
Asset management practices
are foundational for building
resilient communities
by Benjamin Koczwarski
N INNISFAIL, ALTA., the problem is rain. Specifically, too much
rain: the number of “major” rain events of more than 10
mm has increased in recent years, engineering coordinator Curtis Hoffman says, causing issues with inflow and
infiltration into the sanitary sewer system. Innisfail is a
small municipality of 7,655 residents and doesn’t treat its
own sewage, Hoffman points out. Instead, they pump it to
the City of Red Deer for treatment and pay for this service
based on volume. “After major rainfall events, we see a
spike in that volume,” he says. “That’s unnecessary groundwater that we’re paying to treat.”
Heavy rain. Hurricanes. Floods. Wildfires. Heat waves.
They’re not new issues for municipalities to cope with.
But what is new is their increased frequency—and their
severity. Like Innisfail, towns and cities across Canada are
facing increased stress on their infrastructure as the consequences of climate change escalate. At the same time, they
are looking for effective (and cost-effective) ways to cut
emissions and take action to help keep global temperature
increases as low as possible.
These challenges call for a new diligence when it comes
to maintaining, repairing, and replacing municipal assets.
In an altered and still-changing climate, old assumptions
about infrastructure no longer hold water. Long-term
planning needs to take climate change into account,
whether it’s prepping for higher storm surges or dealing
with buckling sidewalks caused by excess heat. That’s
why Innisfail and other communities are developing asset
management (AM) systems that are proactive on climate
change, thanks in part to funding, training, and resources
from the Municipal Asset Management Program (MAMP)
delivered by the Federation of Canadian Municipalities
(FCM) and funded by the Government of Canada. By
integrating climate action into their asset management
systems, these municipalities are stepping up to prepare
for an uncertain future.
I
Benjamin Koczwarski
is the sector lead for
FCM’s Municipal Asset
Management Program.
Partners for climate
One of these is Quispamsis, N.B., a town of about 19,000 in
the Kennebecasis River valley. For this riverfront commu-
28 RENEW CANADA — JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2023
nity, high water levels and floods are a risk, notes Gary
Losier, who is the municipality’s director of engineering
and works as well as president-elect of the American
Public Works Association. While they’ve been lucky so
far to avoid the extreme flooding that’s been experienced
recently in many other parts of Canada, staff are keenly
aware that their turn could come, and thus are building
climate change predictions into their planning. “When it
comes time to upgrade or adapt an asset designed back in
the day for a 20- or 50-year storm, we look at how those
[flood risk] scenarios have changed,” Losier says. “Replacing something like a pump station, we look at the material
being chosen, the efficiency of the engines or the motors.
Does it have to be designed with additional buffers or
flow protection?”
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