Extra pump needed at waste-water plant

Rising lake water has forced the Westside Regional Wastewater Treatment Plant to acquire an additional pump to pump treated waste water into Okanagan Lake.

Every day, the plant treats approximately 10 million litres of waste water from West Kelowna, Peachland and the Westbank First Nation, and it discharges the same amount of treated waste water into Okanagan Lake.

The plant has recently seen an increase in its flows due to flooding and heavy rainfall, said Bruce Smith, with the Regional District of Central Okanagan.

“When the lake level rises, the capacity for the existing outflow from the plant into Okanagan Lake decreases,” he said. “We’re pumping the same volume of treated effluent, but we’re doing it with an additional pump and bypass because the existing outflow can’t handle it.”

The water flowing from the extra pump has been treated and there is no health risk, said Smith.

The additional pump will stay in place until the lake level decreases.

“We’re going to need that additional pumping capacity to keep up,” he said. “Without it, the treated effluent would spill out of the plant; we would have nowhere for it to go.”

Both the Ministry of Environment and Interior Health were consulted about the addition of the supplemental pump.