qathet Regional District board will consider adopting the Lund sanitary sewer master plan final report that was prepared by engineering firm McElhanney Ltd.
At the November 22 committee of the whole meeting, Electoral Area A director Jason Lennox said for him, and the other residents of Lund who are on the service, the report was very educational. He said he was involved with the installation of the new plant itself and helped his father as caretaker.
“There are some pretty broad assumptions in the report but it gives me a little bit more confidence about the age of the system and what we can expect,” said Lennox. “Asset management is clearly taken into consideration here, so I appreciate the report.”
City of Powell River director Cindy Elliott said she has been reading the report and trying to understand it. She said she was wondering if there were highlights of the report that staff might want to bring to the board’s attention.
“There’s a lot of details and sometimes it’s hard to understand the significance of what they are trying to say,” said Elliott. “Are there pieces of the report that you [staff] would like to highlight and explain to the board?”
Manager of asset management and strategic initiates Arnold Schwabe said the report had a series of recommendations that point out features that could use improvement. He said there was mention of an inflow and infiltration (I&I) study. He said it assumes where there are leaks or inflow into a system that shouldn’t be there. Schwabe said in the report there are estimates of what the I&I is but it can’t seem to reconcile with the numbers being observed.
“They are struggling a bit,” said Schwabe. “The result of that is a recommendation that more system monitoring would occur. We would use something referred to as SCADA, which is system control and data acquisition.”
Schwabe said the engineering study does mention SCADA. The engineer firm was not commissioned by the regional district to do this, he added. He said the regional district went to a third company that specializes in SCADA software and there was a review of the system.
Electoral Area B director Mark Gisborne said one of his concerns is growth in the Lund area. He said there is provincial legislation being developed that may affect development.
Schwabe said with some of the recommendations in the report, better monitoring might tighten up the system and allow for growth up to a certain point.
Lennox said the report is pretty vague about future capacity and indicated that more detailed monitoring should be done.
“Over the life of this proposed plan, hopefully, the goals are achievable,” added Lennox.
City director George Doubt said it was a fascinating study of the sewer system in Lund. He said the recommendations and actions all seem very reasonable and doable.
“It [the sewer system] will probably be in good shape for a long time to come,” said Doubt. “It looks like it is being reasonably well taken care of and the suggestions in the report are great.”
According to the staff report, the master plan examined the current state of the system and identifies critical aspects and components, and recommends operational and maintenance procedures. It stated that the report could be used in conjunction with the Lund sewer state of assets report to identify areas of focus for capital planning work necessary for continued operation of the system. The report stated that the master plan will be used to guide budget decisions and upgrades to the Lund sewer system for the next five to 10 years.
The committee recommended the board adopt the Lund sanitary sewer master plan final report.
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