HomeMy WebLinkAboutINS-17-030 - Upper Blair Creek Monitoring Program - Grand River Conservation Area Purchase Order
REPORT TO: Finance and Corporate Services
DATE OF MEETING: April 3, 2017
SUBMITTED BY: Hans Gross, Director, Engineering 519-741-2200 x7410
PREPARED BY: Katie Pietrzak,Project Manager, Development Engineering,
519-741-2200 x 7135
WARD(S) INVOLVED: Ward 4 and 5
DATE OF REPORT: March 22, 2017
REPORT NO.: INS- 17-030
SUBJECT: Upper Blair Creek Monitoring Program Grand River
Conservation Area Purchase Order
___________________________________________________________________________
RECOMMENDATION:
That Council approve apurchase order issued to the Grand River Conservation
Area (GRCA) to carry out the 5-year Long Term Annual Monitoring Program in the
amount of $500,000.00 in accordance with the approved Upper Blair Creek
Functional Drainage Study (2009) and the Upper Blair Creek State of the
Watershed (2016) recommendations.
BACKGROUND:
In 2003, the Upper Blair Creek Functional Drainage Study (FDS) was started in
cooperation with the GRCA, the Region of Waterloo and the City of Kitchener. The
Upper Blair Creek FDS was approved by Council on February 9, 2009. The study dealt
with the technical issues related to hydrogeological and hydrological conditions of the
watershed and the associated stormwater management measures that could be
implemented to minimize changes from the current condition.
The Upper Blair Creek State of the Watershed (SOW) was completed on February 10,
2016 by Aquafor Beach Ltd. and was approved by Council April 25, 2016. The Upper
Blair SOW was intended to establish the baseline conditions from the synthesis of the
systemwide and development monitoring undertaken by the relevant developers and
the GRCA (on behalf of the City of Kitchener) in keeping with the Integrated Watershed
Management and Adaptive Management Approaches (AMA) recommended as part the
1997 Blair, Bechtel, and Bauman Creeks SubwatershedPlan (BBB Study) and the
subsequent supporting technical report entitled the 2009 Upper Blair CreekFDS.
REPORT:
The FDS identifies the GRCA as the responsible party to undertake the system wide
monitoring, and development charges as the funding mechanism. Over the past 5
*** This information is available in accessible formats upon request. ***
Please call 519-741-2345 or TTY 1-866-969-9994 for assistance.
1 - 1
years, the GRCA has completed the monitoring with their in house resources with the
expertise and knowledge to complete this work to theirs and ours satisfaction. The
likelihood of a consultant completing this work within the approved budget is highly
unlikely.
It was recommended that the comprehensive monitoring, maintenance, and mitigation
program outlined in Section 6 in the FDS be implemented as a means of confirming
existing background characteristics, design assumptions contained herein and within
future model updates, and minimize the potential for negative impacts on the receiving
system.
The continued monitoring program, designed by the GRCA with City of Kitchener input,
will phase in implementation of the SOW recommendations, notably installation of the
last one of the 5 automated water quality samplers. GRCA will also be reviewing the
data collected at the autosamplers in 2016, and performing trial analyses of the data to
identify any changes in monitoring methodology that may need to beimplemented to
improve the data.The monitoring results from the Upper Blair watershed will continue
Since the SOW was approved by Council we would be acting on the Council
recommendation to move forward with the next 5 years of the monitoring program.
ALIGNMENT WITH CITY OF KITCHENER STRATEGIC PLAN:
The recommendation
vision through the delivery of core service.
FINANCIAL IMPLICATIONS:
The Upper Blair Creek monitoring program was identified in the 2009 Development
Charge Background Study. The ongoing monitoring program for the Upper Blair Creek
will be funded from the Development Charges, Upper Blair Creek Monitoring account
#59500643.
The current purchase order #201998 issued for the period of 2012-2016 contains a
balance of $67,561.75. The current purchase order will be closed out and the balance
of the remaining funds will be returned to Account #59500643. The 10-year capital
forecast contains sufficient funding for this program. The total cost to complete the
monitoring program for the next five years from 2017 to 2021 (inclusive) is $500,000.00
(excluding HST).
CONCLUSION:
Staff recommends that a purchase order be issued to the GRCA for the next 5 years of
the Long Term Monitoring Program.
ACKNOWLEDGED BY: Justin Readman, Interim Executive Director, Infrastructure
Services.
1 - 2