The water treatment plant

Where this comes from. This page summarises two sets of engineering documents written in 2018, for other people: Associated Engineering's valuation of the plant and reservoir, prepared for Fish Creek Ranch, and MPE Engineering's North Distribution Assessment, prepared for the M.D. of Foothills. The co-op commissioned neither and has not had either re-checked. Every figure below is footnoted to the document it came from, and the MPE reports are published in full by West Foothills Water if you would rather read the originals. None of this is a commitment to a route, a cost, a water rate or a date.

The Fish Creek Ranch Water Treatment Plant sits at the intersection of Highway 762 and Range Road 45, next to the reservoir that feeds it. It is a potable water treatment facility, built to provincial standards, and has been running since 2013 (Figure 1). It is also, by the standards of what it could serve, severely underutilized.

What is there

Installation began in 2011 and the plant was commissioned in 2013 [1]. Foothills County owns and operates it.

The treatment train is short and conventional for a plant of this size. A well pump at the reservoir sends raw water 92 m to the plant. A Pall membrane microfiltration skid removes Giardia and Cryptosporidium and brings turbidity down to low levels. Sodium hypochlorite provides disinfection. Treated water is held in two tanks and distributed by two pumps [1]. The skid itself is Figure 2, and Table 1 sets out the plant as installed.

Table 1 - The plant as installed, from the 2018 valuation report.

Measure	Detail
Commissioned	2013, installation begun 2011 [1]
Filtration	Pall AP-2 microfiltration skid, rated 200,000 litres a day (200 m³) [1]
Disinfection	sodium hypochlorite [1]
Treated water storage	two tanks, 75,700 and 37,800 litres (75.7 m³ and 37.8 m³) [1]
Distribution	two pumps, on variable frequency drives [1]
Currently supplies	a truck fill station and 7 subdivision homes [1]
Waste	a 22,700 litre (22.7 m³) underground tank pumped out periodically, and a two cell backwash lagoon that evaporates [1]

The plant is heavily instrumented for its size: a feed turbidity meter, a laser turbidity meter and a particle counter on the treated water, a chlorine monitor, a weigh scale on the sodium hypochlorite, and flow and pressure monitoring, all running to a PLC with a desktop operator interface and SCADA [1]. The building has a control room, a laboratory, an office and a washroom, and it was deliberately built with space left over for the treatment system to grow [1].

The plant also provides fire water storage and supply to the surrounding area, which the valuation report singles out as significant on its own [2]. Figure 3 shows the truck fill, and Figure 4 the plant's position relative to the reservoir that feeds it.

What it is worth

The September 2018 valuation put the plant and reservoir together at $10,542,300, made up as set out in Table 2 [1]. The land was valued separately, at $2,066,000 for the 28.14 acre reservoir parcel and the 2.99 acre plant parcel together [1].

Table 2 - Valuation of the plant and reservoir, September 2018.

Item	Value
Civil site works	$9,478,550
Process mechanical	$815,350
Structural	$172,500
Electrical	$75,900
Total	$10,542,300

Those are 2018 dollars and a valuation, not a price. In today's dollars, plant, reservoir and land together would be about $15.6 million on consumer price inflation alone, roughly 24 per cent since 2018 [3], and construction costs have risen faster than that. What matters to members is that a capital asset of that size already exists and already treats water to potable standard, and yet today serves only seven houses and a truck fill.

Room to grow, and what growth costs

The plant was designed with modularity in mind, and the 2018 engineering assessment set out what each step up would take [4] [5].

To about 250,000 litres a day (250 m³). Add a fifth module to the existing membrane skid. The manufacturer's advice was that this alone would cover the whole of Phase 1 of the proposed service area.

To about 500,000 litres a day (500 m³). A second Pall skid alongside the first, an upgraded raw water pump, upgraded distribution pumps and piping, a new 76,000 litre (76 m³) potable water tank, upgraded utility service, building modifications and the associated controls.

To about 750,000 litres a day (750 m³). A third Pall skid, a building addition, an upgraded clean in place and neutralisation system, upgraded compressed air, upgraded distribution pumps, another 76,000 litre (76 m³) potable water tank and controls.

The order of magnitude cost estimates prepared in 2018 for the plant work alone, separate from any pipeline, were $1,760,000 for the step needed to serve Phase 2 and a further $1,670,000 for the step needed to serve Phase 3 [5]. Both are Class D estimates in 2018 dollars, including a 25 per cent contingency and engineering, and neither has been re-costed since, though inflation alone would add about a quarter.

The engineers' own advice was that doing the small skid upgrade and the larger expansion together, rather than separately, was the cheaper path overall [4].

What is not settled

• The plant's licensed rated capacity. The 200,000 litres a day (200 m³) figure comes from the equipment and from the county's own account of it [1] [4]. The co-op does not have the plant's approval under the Environmental Protection and Enhancement Act, which is the document that states the rating officially.
• How much of the current capacity is already committed. The engineers recorded that the county regards the existing capacity as allocated to the areas named in the existing water licences [4]. What that leaves in practice has not been established.
• What the upgrades cost today. Every figure above is from 2018; inflation alone would add about a quarter.

Related: The reservoir and Engineering work to date.

Sources

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1. Associated Engineering Alberta Ltd., Fish Creek Ranch Water Treatment Plant Valuation, report prepared for Fish Creek Ranch (September 2018), secs. 1.2, 3.1, 3.3, and 3.6, and table 4-1. Unpublished; a copy is held in the co-op's records.

2. Associated Engineering Alberta Ltd., "Strategic Value of Fish Creek Ranch Water Treatment Plant," app. F to Fish Creek Ranch Water Treatment Plant Valuation (September 2018).

3. Bank of Canada, Inflation Calculator, September 2018 to the latest month published, applied to the $10,542,300 valuation plus the $2,066,000 land value, accessed October 7, 2026, https://www.bankofcanada.ca/rates/related/inflation-calculator/.

4. MPE Engineering Ltd., "Fish Creek Ranch: North Distribution Assessment (Task 1)," letter report prepared for the M.D. of Foothills No. 31, job 2210-051-01 (May 24, 2018). West Foothills Water, accessed August 8, 2026, https://westfoothillswater.ca/.

5. MPE Engineering Ltd., "Fish Creek Ranch: North Distribution Assessment (Task 2)," draft letter report prepared for the M.D. of Foothills No. 31, job 2210-051-01 (May 24, 2018), table 4. West Foothills Water, accessed August 8, 2026, https://westfoothillswater.ca/.