Cochrane has gone through a six-day ordeal that will now be unravelled in several investigations that will take much longer to conduct.

CAO Mike Derricott says people have been seeking answers to what happened, the impact of the wastewater spillage into the Bow River, the massive loss of water from the town system, and the cost, if any, to taxpayers.

"We want to confirm that these are valid questions and please rest assured that we are capturing this information and we'll share it in due course," said Derricott at yesterday's press conference.

The investigative stage of the incident has begun.

"The investigation part of enacting our emergency procedures is to ensure that we are fully documenting everything that's happening and what's being done so that we can properly understand that."

He says the ultimate goal is to build procedures that will prevent this type of thing from happening again.

It's just one of many investigations.

"We have lots of our own questions that want to answer, but there are also regulatory bodies that will be requiring us to do some reporting, including Alberta Environment and the Alberta Emergency Management Agency. Whenever you enact a state of local emergency, there are requirements there as well. So there are processes for the people of our community to have confidence that we will be appropriately answering all of those questions that exist there."

He said Alberta Environment officials have been on site and have worked closely with the town throughout the incident.

At this point, the town has declined to provide details on the costs associated with the emergency. Nor has it been determined where that financial burden will lie.

"We will absolutely work to protect the interests of the community and the taxpayers, but we haven't reviewed that in any detail yet."

By declaring a state of emergency, the town did open the door to possible provincial funding to negate costs should that option be required.

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