Regina’s Creeks subdivision awarded “The best new subdivision”

Aerial view of The Creeks subdivision.

Aerial view of pumping station.

AE team (back row, L-R) Cory Wihlidal, Megan Dzuba, Carma Holmes,Victoria Ritco, James Stobbs. (front row, L-R): Stan Torgunrud, Daryl Brown, Jacob Froh, Bill Heywood.

The City of Regina, Saskatchewan is experiencing a steady population growth which has sparked significant land development in the city. Associated Engineering was retained by Karina Developments in 2007 to prepare a serviceability study for a new neighbourhood in the southeast sector of the city, known as “The Creeks”. This development borders a nature reserve, in addition to a neighbourhood park and green spaces.

Subdivision Servicing
At full build out, The Creeks neighbourhood will contain 625 residential lots, 110 condominium units, and 12 hectares of green space, not including an environmental reserve along the two creeks that form the neighbourhood boundary. The construction of the services for Stage 1 of the neighbourhood was completed in 2009 and involved the installation of approximately 5,480 metres of piping within the subdivision, 1,655 metres of forcemain, and 1,000 metres of water supply main. The first homes were completed for the officia lribbon cutting ceremony in the spring of 2009. Construction of Stage 2 of the development started this fall.

Associated Engineering worked with the City of Regina and Karina Developments to develop a servicing plan for the new neighbourhood. Associated Engineering designed the water supply and distribution, wastewater collection, and stormwater management systems for the new neighbourhood as well as the required wastewater pumping station, wet weather storage, and forcemain.

Wastewater Collection System
The existing wastewater trunk main in the area was inadequate to accommodate additional wastewater flows during wet weather events. The solution was to construct a pumping station and wet weather storage facility to retain the sanitary wastewater flows from the neighbourhood until there was sufficient capacity available in the adjoining trunk main. Based on operating experience, the city required that the neighbourhood be self sufficient in terms of wastewater collection for a 12 hour period during a 1:25 year storm event.

The wastewater collection system incorporates sealed manholes as a feature in the design of a “tight” system to reduce the amount of inflow and infiltration flows into the wastewater collection system. Weeping tile drains for residences in the area are discharged over land to eliminate these flows from the wastewater system. These measures were introduced to limit flows in the sanitary sewer system and reduce the impact on the existing wastewater infrastructure in the area and the volume of storage required in the new neighbourhood.

Wastewater Pumping Station and
Wet Weather Storage
The wastewater pumping station is being constructed with an adjacent storage tank to dampen peak flows to the existing collection system during wet weather events. Approximately 1,000 cubic metresof storage is being constructed with the first phase of the pumping station to accommodate 500 residential units in the neighbourhood. The pumping station and storage tank have been constructed to allow for expansion to a total of 5,000 cubic metres of storage, to accommodate flows from an additional 230 hectares of developable land within this sector of the city.

The pumping station and storage tank incorporates some unique features to improve the operation of the facilities, such as a trench-type wet well, tipping buckets cleaning mechanism, and flow monitoring. A flow monitoring station has been installed on the existing wastewater trunk to provide real time data on the available capacity in the system thus signalling the pumping station when to pump to storage.

Daryl Brown, Project Manager, says, “Working with the City of Regina and Karina Developments, the design team was able to provide a wastewater system design that would allow growth to continue in the southeast sector of the city despite limitations in the existing infrastructure.”

The Creeks subdivision was awarded the “Best New Subdivision of 2008”, due, in part, to the many innovations and hard work of the design team. Associated Engineering staff who worked on this project include Daryl Brown, Bill Heywood, Jacob Froh, Lisa Hastings, Tom Williams, Toni Ivan, Tyler Graham, Victoria Ritco, Esther Vennard, Richard Zepick, Geoff Sarazin, Greg Schmidt, James Stobbs, Megan Dzuba, Carma Holmes, Stan Torgunrud, Kelly Krupp, Muna Khris, Marvin Akister, Edwin Klassen, and Marek Braczek.