The City of Steinbach will be doing major work on the water and sewer lines along Brandt Street between First Street and Lumber Avenue this coming year.

Mayor Earl Funk says the waterline will be completely removed and replaced, however, for the sewer line, they will actually use a new technology that will extend the life of the pipe.

"There is a product that is out there, it is a liner that you feed from one manhole to the next and then somehow with heat, it kind of sucks up to the walls and it can extend the life of the pipe for 20 years. This pipe down Brandt is a great candidate for this product. Doing this now, we save millions of dollars as opposed to digging up all of the pipe and replacing every section."

By the time this new liner is at the end of its life, Funk says Brandt Street will need to be rebuilt anyway. He notes because only the waterline will be fully removed and replaced, the most westerly lane of Brandt Street between First and Lumber will be the only lane that needs to be dug up for this project.

Councillor Michael Zwaagstra moved to give this local improvement plan first reading. He notes it is important that we do this work now to keep the infrastructure from deteriorating and costing the city much more in the near future.

"The estimated project cost is just over $2.4M and approximately half of that would come from borrowing over a five-year period as is our normal practice and then the remainder of the funding comes from our city's utility reserve and utility operating funds and so I think that is an appropriate way to fund this."

Being a local improvement plan, Steinbach Chief Administrative Officer Troy Warkentin says the city will recover the debt-funded portion of the project through a mill rate levy to the general water local improvement district and sewer local improvement district. He notes this is standard practice for the city.

Council voted to give the local improvement plan first and second reading.