City of Powell River council to consider safety upgrades at recreation complex

Safety upgrades to the Powell River Recreation Complex ammonia refrigeration plant will be considered by City of Powell River council.

At the May 27 finance committee meeting, manager of recreation Neil Pukesh came before the committee to request funding of up to $27,175 from the city’s health and safety reserve to carry out the mandatory upgrade.

Pukesh said in April of this year, Technical Safety BC issued two new safety orders regarding ammonia refrigeration plants. He said the first is to require installation of a pressure relief valve to the secondary coolant piping and the second is to ensure the emergency discharge line is properly sized.

“Both of these orders came out of their ongoing investigation of the unfortunate incident that happened in Fernie in 2017,” said Pukesh.

In his report to council, Pukesh said City of Fernie experienced a catastrophic failure of its ammonia-based refrigeration system that claimed three lives.

Pukesh said upon inspection of Powell River’s refrigeration plant, both orders impact the city, therefore upgrades are required and mandatory.

“To ensure compliance, Technical Safety BC indicated all upgrades must be completed by February 28, 2022, otherwise enforcement action may occur,” said Pukesh. “From a timing perspective, staff are recommending the work is completed this summer while our refrigeration mechanics are onsite and while our refrigeration system is down, to avoid any disruptions in our operations moving forward.”

Pukesh said since these safety orders were not known when the 2021 to 2025 financial plan was being prepared, staff is seeking special direction from council to authorize spending on these items, funded from the health and safety reserve, which has a balance of $104,200.

Councillor Jim Palm said he knows there was great concern after what happened in Fernie regarding ammonia refrigeration. He asked if this expenditure would end the upgrades and fully protect the city and its workers on a go-forward basis.

Pukesh said it should, but there could be more safety orders coming through. Staff do not know when they might happen and what they may involve. He said regulators have announced a new ammonia safety awareness program and all maintenance staff will be going through that.

“We are in 100 per cent compliance when we complete these two safety orders, so we’re in great shape,” said Pukesh. “We’ve just completed an exposure control plan for both our chlorine and ammonia systems and we are currently working with a contractor for the development of an emergency response plan that includes data modelling for exposures of ammonia and chlorine within the community should that occur.

“We are taking safety as our top priority.”

The finance committee voted to consider the request at its June 3 meeting.