Stettler County saw one of its water filling stations suffer a serious problem right on Christmas Eve, heard councillors at their regular meeting Jan. 12.
The information came about after a request from Coun. Paul Mckay, who noted he’d been approached by a few neighbours the first week of January 2022 who complained that the Red Willow truck fill, a water filling station, was out of order.
Mckay stated one of the neighbours told him she went to the White Sands truck fill instead but wasn’t able to manage the equipment there.
Mckay asked if there was any way to help senior citizens get water in those situations, perhaps by posting the news that a water station is not working.
During discussion it was noted Alberta was also under extreme cold warnings during the time in question.
Director fo Municipal Services Andrew Brysiuk stated that the Red Willow truck fill turned into a bit of a challenge for Stettler County as it suffered a computer problem of some kind right on Christmas Eve.
However, Brysiuk stated the truck fill is up and running again, but will need some time for maintenance for being out of action for so long.
Brysiuk noted the outage was posted on the Stettler County website but the county doesn’t have any way to directly tell residents unless they sign up for county notices.
Reeve Larry Clarke asked if Stettler County truck fill tokens work elsewhere, which Brysiuk, answered a resident’s water fill PIN number will work at any Stettler County water fill stations and any Shirley McClellan water Commission fill station. However, the PIN number doesn’t work at Town of Stettler sites.
Mckay stated it’s regrettable that crime is bad around the water fill sites that coin boxes are no longer an option.
Coun. Les Stulberg added that if the water fill station went down any other time than Christmas Eve it probably wouldn’t have been as big a problem for the county.
Brysiuk noted that the county doesn’t even have to issue cards for residents to use the water fill stations, all it takes is a PIN number which residents can get by calling the Stettler County office.
Stu Salkeld, Local Journalism Initiative reporter
ECA Review