City council approves Powell River Recreation Complex expenditures

City of Powell River council has approved two expenditures for Powell River Recreation Complex that will provide a study for roofing and increase safety in the refrigeration plant.

At the June 3 council meeting, councillors first approved funding of up to $30,000 from the city’s building and infrastructure reserve for the structural review of the swimming pool roof decking.

Councillor George Doubt said the money is required to do a study of the condition of the pool roof.

“It has been noticed by various people doing inspections of the building that it may need work and we want to do that before there is more work hopefully done on the whole recreation centre building, so we are doing it in the right order and we don’t end up having to fix something twice,” said Doubt.

Council unanimously carried the motion for the roof study funding.

Council then considered the recreation complex refrigeration plant safety upgrades. The motion before council was for it to approve funding of up to $27,175 from the health and safety reserve for safety upgrades to the ammonia refrigeration plant.

Councillor Jim Palm said this is an upgrade of aging infrastructure.

“The recreation complex is getting on in age and we want to make sure we are safe in that building at all times,” said Palm. “This is a necessary upgrade in that department. We’ve done some great work over the COVID-19-related time upgrading quite a bit of our mechanical equipment and our pool area so I’m happy to see this going forward on a safety basis.”

Councillor Rob Southcott said this is the same kind of refrigeration system that killed three people in Fernie, BC, in 2017.

“We need to do this,” said Southcott.

Council unanimously carried a motion for the refrigeration upgrade.

According to a staff report, since 2018, WorkSafeBC and Technical Safety BC have been working closely with ammonia refrigeration operators to ensure safety regulations are being maintained, while also identifying opportunities for safety enhancements. The staff report indicated that in April 2021, Technical Safety BC issued two safety orders regarding ammonia in refrigeration plants that require installation of a pressure relief valve to the secondary cooling piping and increasing the pipe size of the emergency discharge line from three-inch to four-inch diameter.

Powell River Recreation Complex did not conform to these orders, therefore safety upgrades are required.

It is recommended the upgrades take place in July, at the same time as scheduled annual maintenance.