MURRAYDALE SUBDIVISION STORMWATER ASSESSMENT

Posted on September 2, 2026 by Ryan Dahlman

By Marcus Day

Maple Creek News

“Not another penny.”

The idea of paying Associated Engineering roughly another $12,000 for the completion of the Murraydale subdivision stormwater assessment did not sit well with Town Councillor Michael Stork.

Nor did it impress the five other councillors and Michelle McKenzie, the mayor.

At last Thursday’s meeting, Council unanimously defeated a motion to approve a project scope change, which would see costs rise from $309,685.80 to $321.385.80.

Council argued the scope change was based on an engineering mistake – the failure to understand drainage in the area, including the Airport and golf course, and identify the presence of culverts.

”We are already paying $300,000 for what appears to be a mistake of another engineering firm,” said Councillor Stork.

”Not another penny. I am not approving any additional expenditure on their behalf for this, and if that means we walk away from them and we gotta bring up an engineering firm from Mexico to do this, that’s what I’m willing to do.”

In July 15 correspondence with the Town, Ryan Karsgaard, Associated Engineering’s project manager, proposed that a “dedicated Utility Coordination task” be established.

He added that the identification of two 900 mm culverts beneath the runway, not picked up during the initial assessment, meant re-evaluation of the site drainage design.

Giving the reason for the scope change, he said: “Following stakeholder engagement sessions held on July 9 and 10, additional background information was identified that was not available during the preparation of the original Murraydale Subdivision Stormwater Assessment. As a result, certain aspects of the assessment require revision, and further coordination with utility providers is needed to confirm utility routing, relocation requirements, and design recommendations before proceeding to detailed design.”

Councillor Stork spoke about the initial drainage assessment.”The people who are hired to tell us how things were going to drain, didn’t understand how the drainage happened from the south side of the runway to the north side of the runway.”

You can see by the satellite maps the water course coming to the middle of the runway and continuing on the north side and heading towards the golf course. You can see it on Google maps; you can see it on whatever. And they missed that somehow. They didn’t understand that the water had to get from the south side of the runway to the north side of the runway.”

Whether it was through teleportation or osmosis or whatever, they needed to come back and have somebody local tell them, well there are culverts there.”

Councillor Stork said that a previous Associated Engineering report mentioned that a site inspection and survey confirmed “the location of culverts upstream of the subdivision and outside of town limits”.

In a proposal received in September 2025, added Councillor Stork, Associated Engineering said it was going to be doing a topographical survey, referring to an “RTKGPS” – real time kinematic global positioning system – to dress up its intentions.

”It means nothing, it just means they are doing a topographical survey. Well, if you are doing a topographical survey and you followed that back to the runway you would have run into those culverts, and apparently they didn’t; and now they want to charge us another $12,000 to correct the mistake that they did.”

Councillor Stork said $10,000-$15,000 was being charged for a site assessment.”

And based on what? A phone call, a couple of people to walk around and not actually find out how the drainage worked when we hired them very specifically to find out how the drainage worked. Not another penny. It’s not happening. That’s everything I have to say about this.”McKenzie thanked Councillor Stork for his comments.

”I’m glad you got that off your mind. You put it much more elegantly than I would have done.”

Councillor Corrine Collura said: “I definitely see Councillor Stork’s point and if we go back to the lagoon building, it is the same company who made some serious errors there that are costing us a lot of money. So, I’ve wondered for a few years now if we should be shopping around for our engineering services.”

McKenzie said she had held that conversation last week with Andrew Stevenson, interim director of operations.

She asked Council where it wanted to go with the matter.

Did it want to give Barry Elliott, the Town’s chief administrative officer, direction to go back to Associated Engineer and say “No, your mistake, correct it”?

Councillor Cresswell thought Councillor Stork had expressed his position much better than she could have done.

She added that sometimes it was impossible to understand whether engineers had done their jobs because of the language employed. ”I’m not prepared to give them the benefit of the doubt this time.”

Councillor Collura said: “I will add very much less eloquently that sometimes people feel like they can hose us because we’re the Town and we’ve got money. We have taxpayers who pay for these services and I don’t like getting hosed.” McKenzie told Councillor Collura: “Your thoughts and sentiments go all across the province …”