WATER WOES FLOW
The city’s takeover of a second independent water system won’t be anywhere near as expensive as its first acquisition, officials say.
Assets owned and operated by the Glenmore Ellison Improvement District are in good shape with no major capital projects on the horizon, board chair Steven Bonn said Wednesday.
“The big projects are definitely done,” he said in an interview, citing completion of a new intake from Okanagan Lake and activation of a dual water disinfection system that uses both chlorine and ultraviolet light.
“We’ve done the work that we were given the responsibility to do, so it’s time to hand it off and let someone else take the ball and run with it,” Bonn said.
Although the GEID dates back to 1921, the folding-in of its operations into the municipally-run system has been anticipated for several years, he said. “It was never a matter of ‘if’, but more a matter of ‘when” Bonn said, noting particularly that the province has set a general expectation across B.C. for independently-run systems to be taken over by municipally-controlled ones where practical.
The provincial directive is more than just an advisory, however, as it’s possible independent systems could lose access to the considerable federal and provincial grants that make costly system upgrades feasible.
Trustees of the GEID board have voted unanimously in favour of turning the water system over to Kelowna’s ownership and control. There is no opportunity for the water system’s 23,000 customers to block the transfer, with only the expected provincial approval necessary to complete the transfer.
A three-year transition plan has been agreed. Neither GEID customers nor users of Kelowna’s water utility will see any rate increase as a result of the takeover, municipal officials say.
“For our customers, the goal was to make this seamless,” Bonn said. “At some point, our customers will get bills that have a City of Kelowna logo, as opposed to a GEID logo. But that should really be the net impact.”
“We are pleased to be working collaboratively with GEID and share the goal of providing high-quality service and water that both GEID and city customers are accustomed to,” Mayor Tom Dyas said in a release.
When the city took over the South East Kelowna Irrigation District in 2017, the integration cost topped $100 million. Much of the expense involved construction of a new potable water system with 82 kilometres of pipe to deliver drinking water to households, separate from a non-potable line used for agriculture.
That project also involved the construction of three new reservoirs and 12 pressure-reducing stations, and led to an increase in water rates paid by property owners formerly served by SEKID.
About 9,000 acres of land are serviced by GEID, of which about 20 per cent are farming properties, most in the Ellison area east of Kelowna. The physical integration of the Kelowna and GEID systems will not occur immediately, but is expected to happen over time.
“It only makes sense to do that,” Bonn said. “Being able to merge together, and have that resiliency between both systems, we see it really as a win-win. Having one manager, or one governing authority, we see as a huge advantage.”