NIPAWIN — The Town of Nipawin is spending $22,750 plus taxes to implement a Geographic Information System (GIS) loaded with information on the town’s assets.
The system will allow town workers to pull up a map on their selected device’s screen, which will show them the age and position of assets like water lines and pipes.
This is phase two of the town’s asset management program.
“This phase of the asset management program is to actually populate the Geographic Information System with the information collected,” said Barry Elliott, the town’s administrator.
“This allows us to have ready access to current property information and infrastructure information and it’s easy to keep updated as those infrastructure elements change for construction.”
Elliott said the mapping system allows town staff to make educated decisions in the future, such as ordering water line replacements.
“Within the system you’re able to access how old the line is, what kind of construction it is, maybe the approximate value, how deep it is in the ground, that sort of thing.”
He said in addition it allows the workers on the ground to have access to the information should there be a problem.
“It allows the people on the ground, if there’s a problem, to pull up the GIS and they get a lot of information on what they’re dealing with. For example, there’s some asbestos pipe somewhere. They know that before they started working on it so they would be able to prepare to handle it correctly and ensure all the safety elements in place.”
With the $22,750 cost, the town will also pay $5,400 plus taxes annually to utilize the services of the firm Lightship to set up and host the GIS.
