The Lacombe Main street project was the first in Alberta and only the fifth in Canada to win an award that is based out of Washington, DC.

It’s called the Institute for Sustainable Infrastructure’s Envision Silver Award for sustainable infrastructure, and to attain silver status, a project must demonstrate that it delivers a range of environmental, social, and economic benefits to the community.

City of Lacombe worked with Stantec Consulting Ltd. and Pidherney’s Inc. on the project which needed to be done badly.

“They needed to replace the sanitary sewer main because it had collapsed and so we needed to put together in relatively short order a project that reduced the impact of construction in this type of project in downtown, “explained Jordan Thompson, Director of Operations and Planning for the city. 

City officials and project leaders by main street with their award

Thompson says after the project was completed they noticed that they reached the criteria needed to win the award and figured they should apply for it, and was excited to receive it.

Projects can be awarded a Bronze, Silver, Gold or Platinum certification based on meeting minimum scoring thresholds, which are judged based on project documentation and achievement.

Dan Willis, Civil Projects Manager of Pidherney’s said they were able to work with the community along with each other to create the best outcome of the project.

“That allowed us to work as a team, to try to identify some risks and talk to the business owners and the community to try and find ways to reduce the impacts and find ways to use more local methods such as aggregates and materials to come together and prepare this project.”

Crews were done working on the project over the summer of 2018.