Water use limited in Black Diamond

TURNER VALLEY — It will be months before Black Diamond residents have access to a fully secure water supply, officials revealed Monday.

The town’s water treatment plant, and two of three water wells, were obliterated in the June 20 flood.

Since then, water from the Turner Valley treatment plant has been shipped to Black Diamond through a 10-centimetre firehose.

That will be replaced with a temporary — and larger — overland pipe by the end of the month while a permanent underground pipe is built.

Officials were “optimistic” that the permanent 25-centimetre pipe would be completed by mid-October.

Until then, the mayors of both towns are urging residents to limit their water usage.

“Basically, it’s the same kind of mandatory water restrictions that we’ve been looking at since June 21,” said Sharlene Brown, mayor of Black Diamond.

“So there’s no washing your cars, we’re requesting that people have bottled water, limit their water use, no watering the grass, and just conserving wherever you’re able to conserve.”

The province is pledging to financially support long-term upgrades to the Turner Valley water treatment plant with a regional water treatment system for Turner Valley, Black Diamond, the M.D. of Foothills, and the Village of Longview — a project that had already been in the works.