Just like when you're renovating your home, you never know what you're going to face until you start a project.

That has certainly been the case with underground infrastructure work in Moose Jaw this year, and more aging infrastructure problems have impacted another project. This time, valves needed to control the flow of water into the high service reservoir have been found to be seized, preventing the brand new water line from Buffalo Pound from being connected to the rest of the system.

"As it sits right now the high service reservoir isn't capable of being operated as intended," explained City Engineer Josh Mickleborough. "To conduct the work on the Buffalo Pound transmission line with respect to the connection to the reservoirs, we need to gain isolation of those reservoirs. Meaning we can turn them off, drain them and then connect the new Buffalo Pound transmission line to the reservoir."

The project aims to replace the line that delivers drinking water from the lake north of the city, connecting to the rest of the water system, but it needs to join the reservoir and the valves control the flow of water. Since they don't work, they can't connect the new line.

"We've already performed the inspections of our two other reservoirs and to get into this one which is two-thirds of the total capacity of all of our water reservoirs, so it's a very important structure," added City Councillor Chris Warren.

Mickleborough says they've found a way around the issue so at least the job can get done. 

"Feed it from the northeast reservoir, replace the 20-inch valves, and the inter-zone valves, then connect the Buffalo Pound transmission line for one chamber, clean and disinfect that storage chamber and put it back into service while doing that same thing to the other storage chamber."

Failing infrastructure has been the story as of late, with a number of projects running into issues as they dig up the streets to make upgrades. This obstacle also came with a price tag of $240,000 to make the necessary repairs.