SMA Wins 5 Showcase Awards at the 2026 Consulting Engineers of Alberta Showcase Awards

SMA Consulting is honoured to have been recognized at the 2026 CEA Showcase Gala on April 17, 2026 for our work on three projects, winning a total of five awards. These included an Award of Excellence for Small Firm, Big Impact and an Award for Merit for Project Management for the 23 Avenue Drainage Tunnel project, an Award of Excellence for Sustainable Design and an Award of Merit in Water Resources for the 99 Avenue Sanitary Trunk Rehabilitation project, and an Award of Excellence in Water Resources for the Springbank Reservoir project. 

The 23 Avenue Storage Tunnel project was part of the early works for Edmonton’s Capital Line South LRT Extension (CLSE), which is currently under construction. The CLSE alignment runs along the north-south 111 Street corridor, crossing 23 Avenue at a busy intersection, surrounded by residential neighbourhoods and shopping centres, and used by ~60,000 vehicles per day. An at-grade LRT line would have been very disruptive, so an underpass was incorporated into the CLSE design. To prevent flooding in the underpass during large storm events, underground stormwater storage was required. The project involved constructing storage tunnels via microtunnelling, using a single, innovative launch shaft to manage two simultaneous drives, as well as a shorter hand tunnel, all successfully undertaken despite utility conflicts and challenging ground conditions. Significant redesigns and adaptations were necessary, including managing a jammed microtunnel boring machine and dealing with an unstable reception shaft. Ultimately, the project successfully delivered crucial infrastructure, ensuring operational resilience for the CLSE, minimizing surface disruption, and enhancing the city’s stormwater management capacity.

SMA was proud to be part of the winning team, which included EPCOR, EllisDon, Shanghai Construction Group, PME, Stantec, Associated Engineering, and WSP.

The 99 Avenue Sanitary Trunk Rehabilitation project involved the rehabilitation of an aging sanitary trunk, originally constructed in 1975. The trunk is 30 m below ground and serves over 117,000 customers in Edmonton’s west end, conveying wastewater to the Gold Bar Wastewater Treatment Plant. The existing trunk varied from fair to very poor condition and required rehabilitation to ensure it continued to meet both the current needs and the expected population growth in the area. A 1.6 km bypass was constructed to facilitate the rehabilitation. Once this was in place, the existing trunk was flushed and cleaned, followed by relining. Upon the completion of the rehabilitation, both the original and the bypass tunnel are in service, increasing the sanitary trunk capacity. SMA provided comprehensive construction management, including risk assessment, risk register preparation and ongoing updates, and review of condition assessment reports. The team also performed schedule reviews and critical path analyses, conducted site inspections, and closely monitored project progress and deliverables throughout the construction phase to ensure alignment with project objectives and contractual requirements.

We were thrilled to be part of a winning team, which included EPCOR, Stantec, Shanghai Construction Group, and Associated Engineering.

The Springbank Off-Stream Reservoir is a dry reservoir, providing flood protection along the Elbow River in Calgary and other downstream communities as part of an overall flood mitigation system. The project will work jointly with Calgary’s Glenmore Reservoir to accommodate water volumes equal to the Elbow River flood of 2013. The reservoir will reduce flood risk by managing downstream river flow rates and volume. This goal will be met while protecting the river, critical habitats, fish and wildlife. SMA was engaged by the Province of Alberta’s Ministry of Transportation and Economic Corridors (TEC) to provide support in the areas of estimate review, lessons learned, Earned Value Analysis, risk management, project management, claims and dispute resolution, and other related services. TEC’s prime consultant on the project was Stantec and the contractor was Vinci.

Heartfelt congratulations to our partners and all of the other winning teams and nominees! We grateful to be counted among such impressive company!