City roads pale in comparison to sewer and water woes

If you think the state of the city's roads are bad, you should see what lies beneath.

While the potholes along the pavement are causing plenty of consternation for the city's drivers, that's only scratching the surface when it comes to just how bad Prince George's infrastructure woes have become.

"As bad a condition as the roads are above ground, we have the same problem underground when you're looking at our water, sewer and storm lines," Coun. Cameron Stolz said.

The state of the water lines have become so bad they are averaging nearly a break a day.

"We have a dedicated work crew now and all they do is repair water breaks," Stolz said. "I think last year it was about 270 or so watermain repairs they did."

A switch to plastic water lines has not helped. Although significantly less expensive than their copper cousins, an unintended consequences is that detecting leaks has become more difficult.

A leaking copper line emits a sound that sensors can pick up allowing crews to pinpoint a break before it gets too big.

Plastic lacks that feature, meaning breaks become near disasters before anyone knows there is a problem and the ground becomes so saturated with water that new material must be brought in to recover the trouble spot.

But that's just a small part of the problem. The age of the pipes is posing the biggest challenge, said Stolz.

"Staff have come up with some very ingenious and very cutting edge solutions like relining pipes, where they actually dig down and put a new sleeve inside the existing pipe that allows us to extend the pipe," Stolz said.

"They're doing some very smart stuff but at the end of the day you can only put so many pieces of duct tape on it before you have to replace the pipes in the ground."

Computer software has aided the city in getting a better gauge of managing its assets but is also presenting a picture taxpayers might not want to see.

It's estimated the city is facing an annual $3.7-million shortfall in the spending needed to maintain Prince George roads, and in addition the shortfall for the water system is $4.3 million, for the sanitary system it's $2.1 million, for the storm sewer system it's $1.3 million and for sidewalks it's $860,000.

All told, that adds up to $12.3 million and it's raising alarm bells at city hall.

"The money has not been set aside at the same rate that the infrastructure has been aging," Stolz said. "It's like buying a brand new car. You don't have to put a whole lot if maintenance into it for the first three, four, five years but once you've had that vehicle for 10 years, you're putting some serious maintenance money into it regularly and that's the challenge."

Prince George isn't the only municipality facing the squeeze.

Mayor Shari Green will be in Kelowna at the end of next week to meet with mayors across the province and one of the issues they'll be tackling is a new deal for local governments.

Of the one dollar the three levels of government collect, just eight cents is taken in by municipalities according to one estimate. The federal, provincial and local governments often share the cost of major capital projects on a one-third, one-third, one-third basis and receive a share of the federal excise tax on gasoline but it's not enough, mayors contend.

"The strength of this province really does depend on the strength and the viability of all of our cities," Green said. "If we want to keep the provincial engine moving, we want to keep the local engine moving."

But Green acknowledged Victoria and Ottawa face tight budgets of their own.

"We're not in an ideal situation," Green said. "We realize that taxpayers have reached their level of tolerance for increases to costs."