Turns out, it costs quite a bit to hide a water tank

Craig Bakay | Jul 14, 2021

While much of last Tuesday’s Addington Highlands regular (online) Council meeting was pretty routine housekeeping matters, there was one item on the agenda that doesn’t show up very often and proved to be quite entertaining — how to hide a water tank.

CAO/Clerk-Treasurer Christine Reed reminded Council that, at a previous meeting, they had suggested “some landscaping to mitigate the less-than-aesthetic design” of a water tank added to the new township administration building that will provide water for firefighting.

Reed said they’d sent out six requests for proposal and received two replies.

The first reply was for a whopping $165,647, which prompted Coun. Helen Yanch to wonder, “would it be easier just to move the tank?”

“A hundred and sixty thousand seems quite a bit to camouflage a mound of dirt,” said Coun. David Miles.

The second was the resurrection of a $30,532 plan which had prompted the request for tenders in the first place.

The amount budgeted for the project had been $25,000.

Reed suggested that perhaps they could go back and try to whittle away $130,000 of the first proposal, but Dep. Reeve Tony Fritsch said if they were going to look at alternate proposals, “I kinda like the snow fence idea.”

“Yeah, a different coloured snow fence,” said Reeve Henry Hogg.

In the end, they decided that the $30,000 proposal was their best bet and approved the project.

Mississippi Valley Conservation

Mississippi Valley Conservation Authority general manager Sally McIntyre brought the Watershed Plan to Addington Highlands as one of the 11 municipalities the MVCA serves along its route, but this time she had a few facts and figures about the current situation to add.

She said that (as of July 6), the MVCA was “running at flows which are 60 per cent below normal.

“It had been 70 to 80 per cent in some areas.”

The recent rainy weather has helped some but “with the hot weather, we’re seeing a lot of evaporation.”

She said they aim for a flow of 5 cubic metres/second out of Crotch Lake as a minimum but currently it’s at 3 cubic metres/second.

“Lanark County projections are for the population to double in the Carleton Place area over the next 30 years,” she said. “How are we to supply water to them?”

She said one idea might be to look at building a new reservoir to supplement Crotch Lake but acknowledged the idea would likely be controversial.

Road Name

Council decided on Thirty Island Road for the new on Crown Land to access properties on the South Shore of Ashby Lake.

The other suggestions were Blanding’s Turtle Lane and Granite Drive.

“I grew up with Thirty Island Road,” said Dep. Reeve Tony Fritsch.

“It should be Duffy Drive because John Duffy did all the work,” said Reeve Henry Hogg.

Electronic Participation

Council amended its procedure bylaw to allow for electronic meeting participation even after the pandemic emergency has ended, setting out rules such as weather events where Council members could be excused from in-person attendance.

In the event that connections fail and a quorum is lost, the meeting would be declared adjourned.

Turtle Signs

Coun. Helen Yanch told Council she had a resident ask for some turtle signage in Northbrook “because we are the turtle capital of the province.”

Reeve Henry Hogg noted that there is already substantial signage, as well as fencing between Kaladar and Northbrook, so when Yanch moved that the Township ask the Ministry of Transport for signage, no one seconded that motion and it was lost.