The City of Estevan and the RM of Estevan have come to terms on a new agreement on water that goes out to the RM.
The new pact was released at Monday night’s city council meeting. Mayor Roy Ludwig said the agreement had lapsed for a few years, and needed to be update, so the language was brought up to date.
“We got together with the RM and we appreciate their input,” said Ludwig. “It went back and forth, and collectively we were able to get an agreement we were all satisfied with.”
There weren’t any big changes or any contentious issues.
Meetings between the two sides started a couple of years ago, and a lot of back and forth was needed, which is why it took so long to iron out.
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Council awarded a lease for six new photocopiers to Xerox Canada for a total of $38,943.84 over the next four years.
The City of Estevan currently has six photocopying machines between city hall, leisure services, the fire department and stores. The lease for the current units expires in January 2020.
In a report to council, city clerk Judy Pilloud said there haven’t been major complaints or lost time, but the current machines need to be replaced as they are jamming and having more error messages, causing loss of productivity.
Included in the bid are two large capacity machines for city hall that are used for tax and utility billing and large collation projects, and four smaller machines for other locations.
Councillor Dennis Moore wanted to know the cost per copy. It amounts to .007 in black and .055 in colour, and Moore noted the price has come down from when he was in business.
It was also noted the cost of the upcoming lease has dropped from the current lease.
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Council also approved the city’s updated violence, harassment and discrimination policy. It coincides with updates to the Saskatchewan Employment Act. City manager Jeff Ward said periodically the city goes through administrative policies to ensure they are up to date, and it was time to go through this document.
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The monthly water quality report for September showed that 150 million litres of water were treated and more than 130 million litres were pumped into the distribution system in September. There were no plant upsets and all regulated parameters were below government regulations except for trihalomethanes, an issue that is to be resolved once Estevan’s primary water source shifts from Boundary Dam to Rafferty Dam.
There also wasn’t any water main breaks in September.
Councillor Trevor Knibbs wanted to know if lead tainting was an issue with local water, after reports surfaced from other communities. Ludwig said that as far as they know, there aren’t any lead issues with Estevan’s water, but the city could do some random testing.
