City plan assures everyone will have clean drinking water

Editor: Ron Seymour’s column, Water users may not be loving the city’s new plan, raises a few questions that I am pleased to address.

The main questions concern the capacity and quality of water in Mission Creek, and whether that water source can supply the clean, safe water customers of the city water utility have come to expect.

Your readers should know the Value Planning Study reviewed current and future licensing requirements related to the proposed plan and concluded there is adequate flow for both domestic water and fish flow.

This was determined through the value planning process earlier this year, with input from relevant provincial ministries and local water planning experts.

The value planning Study recommends developing a city-wide water model and a more detailed review of how the water systems will be split. System demands will be compared with available licensing to ensure that any one source will not be overdrawn.

The beauty of the 2017 Kelowna Integrated Water Supply Plan is its builtin resiliency and redundancy — if there is a shortfall in Mission Creek for any reason, more water could be drawn from Okanagan Lake or wells or vice versa.

While the plan to use Mission Creek as a city-wide water source is implemented over time, Okanagan Lake will supply water to areas identified in Phase 1 of the plan.

The withdrawal of water from streams in British Columbia is governed by acts enforced by the provincial and federal governments to ensure the health of streams, including flows required for environmental reasons.

The city is committed to continued restoration of fish and wildlife stock and habitat in Mission Creek and is an active partner in the Mission Creek Restoration Initiative, a multi-phase, multi-stakeholder partnership formed in 2008 to restore natural functions to the lower sections of Mission Creek.

The new plan also suggests a comprehensive approach to protecting the Mission Creek watershed and looking at ways to store excess capacity.

As stated in your article, “the 60,000 city residents who currently rely on the municipal system already have clean, safe water at reasonable rates, thanks to the city’s technically expert and financially prudent management of the municipal utility.”

That same “technically expert and financially prudent management” would be at work on the integrated system to ensure water quality remains at standards that exceed Canadian Drinking Water Guidelines.

Technical analysis of the water in Mission Creek shows it is of high quality for most of the year. Black Mountain Irrigation District currently uses Mission Creek for the majority of the year to provide its customers with high quality drinking water.

Using water from Mission Creek for the majority of the year will save significant operational costs as using gravity is much less expensive than pumping from Okanagan Lake.

The 2017 Integrated Water Supply Plan has the benefits of ensuring rate equity no matter where residents live, along with efficiencies in operations and administration. An integrated system will also help maximize the ability to defer advanced treatment and when required will significantly reduce costs.

The team that developed the 2017 Kelowna Integrated Water Supply Plan included objective third-party water related experts from the United States, with specialties ranging from planning to building cost estimates to rate setting, along with representatives from local engineering firms who have extensive experience with Kelowna’s water systems and sources such as Mission Creek and Okanagan Lake.

The team was supported by provincial representatives, Interior Health, the ministries of community, sport and cultural development and forests, lands and natural resources operations and representatives from the City of Kelowna and South East Kelowna Irrigation District.

I would like to assure residents that careful planning and testing will occur to ensure water quality and supply remain at the high standard enjoyed by city water utility customers for the past 20 years.

Ron Westlake, City of Kelowna