qathet Regional District board will receive a recommendation that a regional water supply system study be downsized due to cost concerns.
At the September 5 committee of the whole meeting, regional directors considered two motions regarding the study. One was for removal of Well W-93 in the Myrtle water system and Hammil Lake as potential sources in the regional water supply study scope. The second was that the committee recommend the board direct staff to negotiate with Associated Engineering (BC) Ltd. in response to the regional water supply system study request for proposal.
The scope of the study will examine the feasibility of a pilot project for a regional water transmission line extending from City of Powell River limits to the south end of Centennial Drive utilizing the city as a potable water source.
Electoral Area B director Mark Gisborne said he had concerns about the project. One of the first issues was water going south of town. He said there were three options that were requested for study by the regional board several years ago. They were municipal water, Hammil Lake and the deep well.
“Now staff is recommending we take the other items off the table and we go with strictly municipal water,” said Gisborne. “Have we even entered into any kind of negotiation with the municipality to find out the rates we would be paying for water, because I don’t see a point in finding out how much it’s going to cost to put a pipe in if we don’t even know how much the city is going to charge us for water, and whether that rate will be consistent over the next 10 or 20 years. Or, if the city even has water available for us.
“The question is, what has the regional district done to approach the municipality to find out how much we are going to have to pay for water, if the city will even sell us water.”
Chief administrative officer (CAO) Al Radke said he had a conversation with the previous city CAO regarding the potential agreement. Finances were not discussed but capacity was, according to Radke. He said the city was “pretty confident” the capacity was there.
“The whole thing about what the rates would be is a negotiation in itself,” said Radke. “Until we even get to that stage, it’s a moot point to even broach it.”
Gisborne said he had a second concern, where he had heard from a regional director from Strathcona Regional District, where they have a regional water transmission line and are purchasing water from the municipality. Gisborne said the rates increased dramatically a couple of years ago and one of the residents took the regional district and the municipality to court. He said the court’s ruling was that water is now a commodity and the municipality can charge whatever it pleases.
“This makes me very concerned if the regional district puts a water transmission line in and we are hooked into city water,” said Gisborne. “If the city has major funding issues and believes we are not paying our fair share, they could increase the rate and we are stuck paying it. We have no authority as a board to set the rates. It’s city council that does that.”
City director George Doubt said based on his reading of the reports, it seemed reasonable to him to exclude the deep well and Hammil Lake from the study.
“It’s a reasonable study to provide basically to extend city water down to the end of Centennial Drive,” said Doubt. “I’d be in favour of excluding these two alternate sources because it looks to me like they couldn’t be relied on to provide a reasonable source of water into the future.”
Electoral Area A director Patrick Brabazon said the regional district was not pouring concrete in the well or draining Hammil Lake, so should the regional district decide to revisit those two sources, it could do so.
Gisborne made a motion to postpone the decision until the November committee of the whole meeting but the motion was defeated.
He said he could not support the municipal water line study without knowing what the municipality would charge. He said two studies have already been done that the board has not read or is not aware of, so he is concerned.
However, the committee carried a motion to recommend the board remove Well W-93 in the Myrtle water system and Hammil Lake as potential sources in the regional water supply system study scope, with Gisborne opposed.
The committee then carried a motion that it recommend the board direct staff to negotiate with Associated Engineering (BC) Ltd. in response to the regional water supply system study request for proposal, with Gisborne opposed.
