Water treatment plant seeking $100,000 for improvements

Summerland’s water treatment plant is seeking $100,000 for improvements.

Kris Johnson, director of works and utilities for Summerland, addressed council Monday about the concerns of using chlorine gas to clean water and for much-needed space to expand the existing clearwell.

“There are other options for disinfection other than chlorine gas,” Johnson urged council. As he further explained, the water treatment plant is hoping to stop the use of chlorine gas all together. Heavier than air, if there were to be a leak from the plant, the chlorine gas would settle into lower areas — in this case, the valley, which would pose a significant risk to residents.

The requested $100,000 would help finish the conceptual designs that would serve to help eliminate the use of chlorine gas and provide a larger storage space for the clearwell.

The current clearwell is 4,500 cubic inches in size, meaning that should the water treatment plant ever shut down for emergency, staff has only minutes to identify the issue and respond before the clearwell is depleted.

As of now, once the clearwell is depleted to only 25 per cent of its capacity, the current supplemental design forces’ water treated with only chlorine gas to flow. This causes a water advisory to go in to effect for residents, a scenario that Summerland has already seen once this year.

And Summerland was lucky to only ever see one, as Johnson explained, as there had been far too many “close calls” this year.

“Knowing that we had one boil water advisory and hearing that we narrowly missed — because of the expertise of staff — a number of other ones . . . (considering) our No. 1 service priority is drinkable water, I think this is something we should encourage to go forward,” Coun. Toni Boot said.

The motion to reallocate capital funds that were approved for the pre-design of the water treatment plant was passed Monday night.