Promise of site approval for water plant by June buoys Westside officials

West Kelowna city manager reports province said permit should be issued by early next month

Government approval for the location of West Kelowna’s new water treatment plant will come by early June.

Provincial officials promised in late April the necessary permit would be issued within 45 days, city council heard Tuesday.

“I will be following up on a weekly basis to make sure they make that deadline,” city manager Jim Zaffino told council members.

Zaffino’s news surprised and pleased the engineer overseeing preparations for the $49-million plant, designed to improve drinking water for 18,000 people.

“That’s good. That should help tremendously,” said Barry Vallance of Associated Engineering.

In mid-December, there were concerns the necessary government approval might take two years to secure, pushing completion far beyond the timeline specified in the federal and provincial grants secured for the project.

If construction starts in August, the plant would be operational in March 2020. It will be located near Rose Ridge Court rather than right at the Rose Valley reservoir, council heard.

If the plant were built too close to the reservoir, Vallance said, it might be at risk of a future flooding event that would seriously damage its operating systems.

The design of the plant will be very similar to the existing one on Powers Creek, farther south in West Kelowna.

“It’s almost a carbon copy of the Powers Creek water treatment plant,” Vallance said, adding that facility had a proven performance record and represented the most economical approach for the Rose Valley project.

Employing a variety of treatment systems, the new plant will eliminate 99.9 per cent of the bugs

I will be following up on a weekly basis to make sure they make that deadline.

Jim Zaffino

that can cause beaver fever and cryptosporidium, Vallance said. It will also handle the algae blooms that occasionally develop at the reservoir, like one that forced a months-long boil-water advisory in 2016.

Although the project was confirmed early last year with the receipt of the federal and provincial grants, only design work has been done so far. But with word that approval of the selected site is pending, construction will get underway soon and the specified timeline will likely be met, Mayor Doug Findlater said.

“We knew it would be a scramble and now we’re scrambling, but we’ll get it done,” Findlater said.