The town of Shaunavon has teamed with the University of Saskatchewan to deal with a growing problem.
A small group of civil engineering students from the U of S have spent the past seven months helping develop a long-term community plan for Shaunavon as it prepares for what could be an extraordinary growth spurt for the region.
The project was part of a fourth year design class that allows the students an opportunity to get some practical experience as they prepare to start a new career.
“The purpose of the project is to actually give the students some real world engineering experience in terms of completing an authentic project as opposed to doing a hypothetical assignment that they would typically face in their labs,” said Dr. Gordon Sparks, one of the professors     responsible for overseeing the design class at the U of S. “It’s an effort to try and create a situation for the students that would be similar to what they would find if they were working for a consulting engineering company.”
The students were given the task of analyzing several projects for the town, including the first two phases of a potential subdivision expansion in the northwest corner of the community.
“They basically asked us to come up with a community plan moving forward a number of years that future town councils would be able to follow,” explained Andy McMeekin, a member of the student team.
The end result was unveiled in a year-end presentation by the students last month that drew praise from both sides of the joint effort.
“It’s been an excellent experience for everyone involved,” said Shaunavon council member Mike Elmgren, who worked with the students along with fellow council member Mark Benesh. “It’s something I would recommend to anyone and it’s been a real treat to be working with so many young, brilliant minds. Plus, it’s been rewarding to be involved in a program that you know is valuable to their education and helps give them a chance to learn something first hand.”
“This truly was something that benefitted everyone,” he added. “The students can use the experience and we can feel good that we’ve added something to their education.”
Both sides described the project as a win-win situation.
From the town’s standpoint, the initiative provided some much-needed expert advice from a group of future civil engineers. As an added bonus, the service came free of charge.
“You really couldn’t beat the price,” smiled Elmgren. “It really didn’t cost us anything but some time.”
“But we still got something that was extremely valuable to us and we have to give the students a lot of credit for that,” he continued. “They were given a blank canvass and they really took ownership of the project. They took their responsibilities very seriously and did a great job.”
Elmgren says the student group can’t rubber stamp a project, because they have yet to obtain their engineering tickets, but that they can nevertheless “provide us with a lot of great ideas as we move forward. Any new suggestions and recommendations they share are going to be helpful.”
“They can do a lot of the leg work and preliminary studies that need to be done,” said Dr. Sparks. “They can certainly offer ideas for a community and provide vital information and determine whether certain measures are feasible or not.”
“What they’ve been doing is working through the design process, identifying technical and economic feasible alternatives and providing the information and results of analysis so that the decision makers can make an informed decision,” he added.
For the students, the project in Shaunavon represented a chance to get some real life engineering experience.
“It’s a great opportunity for us,” stated McMeekin. “In this case, we are working with someone who actually needs something. It’s not just theoretical problems. It is definitely more real-world experience and something that is going to help us out in the future.”
“From our perspective - and from the students perspective – it’s been terrific,” said Dr. Sparks. “There’s a lot more to engineering than just crunching the numbers. And this opportunity to interact with council, the administrative staff, and the stakeholders has been huge.”
The idea of having a university group come to Shaunavon was first broached during a conversation with mayor Sharon Dickie at the SUMA convention in 2009, where Dr. Sparks was one of the guest speakers.
Another contingent from  Paradise Hill also approached Dr. Sparks looking for help.
In the end, both communities were given separate student projects.
There are about 60 or 70 civil and geological engineering students in the program at the university working on about 15 different projects this year.
The  capstone design project has been in place for the past half dozen years  and is a requirement of Engineers Canada relative to accreditation of the undergraduate engineering programs offered across Canada.
Many of the projects, however, aren’t as interesting or elaborate as the Shaunavon  endeavour. For example, assignments  sometimes include doing some work for engineers on a project that has already been completed or analyzed.
Still, Shaunavon isn’t the first town to get some specialized community planning.
In fact, several years ago Dr. Sparks was invited to take a group of students to Golden, B.C. The community later green-lighted and developed a pair of recommendations from the students.
And there could be more need for this type of service in the future.
Shaunavon isn’t the only town facing a potential crisis when it comes to dealing with rapid growth.
After several decades of stagnant development and a shrinking population base, many small towns across the province have enjoyed a bit of a renaissance in recent years as companies look to Saskatchewan for potential money-making opportunities.
Locally, the resurgence is being led by the oil industry, thanks to some technological advancements that have helped unlock the vast reserves of the Lower Shaunavon foundation.
The increased activity has certainly help boost the fortunes of small Saskatchewan municipalities like Shaunavon.
But it has also created some challenges for those communities trying to cope with the sudden influx of newcomers. In Shaunavon, for instance, finding a place to accommodate those newcomers moving into the community has been a challenge, particularly in the case of those people looking to build new homes.
Additionally, many towns and villages are also facing a crumbling infrastructure as for many they focused their attention on just keeping their communities alive during troubling economic times.
“I think there are a lot of communities in Saskatchewan who are in exactly the same type of situation that we are in,” said Elmgren. “What do we do to meet new housing needs? Developing new lots is a very expensive proposition and you want to explore all of your options and have as much information as you can get before you jump into anything.  Do we have enough infrastructure to handle the development and what do we do about our aging water and sewer systems? People sometimes forget that some of them are 100 years old. They’re crumbling and falling apart and problems are about to come to a head.”
More communities could be approaching the university in the future looking for assistance as they try to deal with those important questions.
“I think if we can figure things out and get our act together, then maybe we can develop a relationship with SUMA,” said Dr. Sparks. “Why don’t we do this is in a more formal way? Then we could be looking at 16 projects each year like the one in Shaunavon.”
Four students - Andy McMeekin, Jason Rusnak, Erica Yaholnitsky and Brennan Trites – worked on the Shaunavon assignment.
McMeekin estimates that each student spent between 100 and 150 hours working on the project.
“We have devoted a lot of time to this project, but so has the town,” said McMeekin.
“It would be great if we came back a year or two from now and saw what we had analyzed or what we had recommended was finished in one form or another,” he added. “We will definitely be checking in from time to time and we’ll certainly be interested to see what actually happens.”