FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
November 8, 2022

OTTAWA, ONTARIO—The Canadian Public Works Association (CPWA) is pleased to announce the City of Cold Lake, Alberta, as winner of the CPWA 2022 National Public Works Week (NPWW) awards contest. Cold Lake’s 2022 NPWW celebration competed for the award with other Canadian municipalities with populations under 25,000. Cold Lake also received CPWA’s NPWW award in 2016, 2017 and 2021.

The 2022 NPWW award will be presented by CPWA Past President Patty Podoborozny during Cold Lake’s November 22, 2022, Council Meeting at 6:00 PM, City Hall Council Chambers, 5513 48 Avenue, Cold Lake, AB, T9M 1A1. Accepting the award for Cold Lake will be Mayor Craig Copeland.

National Public Works Week annually recognizes the tens-of-thousands of men and women in North America who provide and maintain the infrastructure and services collectively known as public works. In May of each year, municipalities throughout the U.S. and Canada celebrate NPWW with open houses, project and facility tours, parades, education, media events, school visits, and career events. Municipalities also use the week to recognize their staff—the women and men who play such an important role in their community’s quality of life.

“National Public Works Week is one of the best ways to increase the public’s awareness about the crucial role public works plays in providing services to our cities and towns,” said Podoborozny. “Cold Lake’s week of public works events, engaging citizens of all ages in a variety of activities, provided opportunities for the public to learn about how important public works infrastructure and services are to our community.”

All public works staff participating in hosting a full week of activities celebrating National Public Works Week, including colouring contests, a community clean up, tours of the city’s Material Recovery Facility and Water Treatment Plant, and a food drive that collected 475 kg of non-perishable food items and over $1,500 in monetary donations for the Cold Lake Food Bank.

Public Works hosted an Open House with demonstrations and displays about public works infrastructure and services: Water & Wastewater Distribution, Collection, and Treatment; Waste Management; Roads and Transit; Parks; Engineering Services; Maintenance of City Facilities and Fleet; and the Cold Lake Regional Airport. In addition to ‘climb-on’ equipment displays and an interactive augmented reality exhibit to show how watersheds are shaped, demonstrations showed how potable water travels from the water main into homes and how wastewater leaves and goes into the collection system and how roads are built and the different aggregates/materials used.

Public Works also continued two successful initiatives begun during earlier NPWW celebrations: Sketch A Shelter and Paint the Plow. The City of Cold Lake owns and operates a small public transportation system, Cold Lake Transit, which includes 10 bus shelters. To fill empty ad space at four of the bus shelters, participants from Ecole Voyager, North Star Elementary and 1st Kinosoo Scouts designed posters that reflect the role of public works in the community and include the words “Ready and Resilient”. The new posters made their first public appearance during National Public Works Week. And Public Works Staff painted 2 snowplows and hired a local airbrush artist to paint a third with the NPWW poster. The snowplows were on display at numerous events throughout the week.

“CPWA is honoured to recognize the City of Cold Lake’s efforts to celebrate National Public Works Week,” Podoborozny said. “Their creativity in engaging residents through events, contests, demonstrations, tours and exhibits showed how critical public works is—not just during National Public Works Week, but all year long.”

About CPWA
The Canadian Public Works Association (CPWA), or Association Canadienne des Travaux Publics, was founded in 1986 to enhance the services of the American Public Works Association (APWA) to the Canadian public works community and to improve the quality of public works products and services to Canadian citizens. APWA’s members in Canada, plan, build, operate, maintain and sustain the public works and infrastructure that improve our quality of community life.

Contact:
Mark Shade
CPWA Government Affairs Media Manager
(202) 218-6736; mshade@apwa.net