City can’t avoid major water upgrade

John Moorhouse Monday, June 18, 2007 http://www.pentictonherald.ca/stories.php?id=49501

City efforts to cut down on consumption won‘t be enough to avoid a $7.7-million expansion of Penticton‘s domestic water system. City council agreed Monday to a new timetable for the project which will see upgrades to the water treatment plant on Penticton Creek as well as the Ridgedale Avenue reservoir. Len Robson, the city‘s public works manager, said instead of spreading the design and construction work over three years, plans now call for the entire project to be carried out in 2007 and 2008. Water rates will increase by 15 per cent over the next two years to pay for the project over the term of the debt. The upgrade was included in the city‘s water system master plan completed in 2005.

However, Coun. Dan Ashton said he‘s concerned about the rising water rates on Penticton taxpayers. “Comparison to what other communities pay, to me is really not relevant. It‘s what our tax base pays,” he said. Coun. Joanne Grimaldi suggested homeowners could reduce their water rates by about 20 per cent by cutting back on consumption. The project follows council‘s approval last fall of a $23-million upgrade to the city‘s sewage treatment by 2010. The city is still determining how supervision of the two projects will impact the operating staff of the two facilities. “We have reports that indicate certain demands on our systems, so we need to be prepared,” said city administrator Leo den Boer. “We don‘t bring these projects on just because we want a plateful of projects. We bring them forward because it‘s necessary.” The upgrade will meet the needs of future expansion of the city‘s residential areas, by almost doubling the system‘s capacity to 115 million litres a day. Jack Kler, the city‘s director of development services, said the expansion is designed to meet future growth demands. “The only reason we‘re doing the expansion – it‘s kind of a chicken and egg scenario – is in anticipation of development that‘s about to come,” he said. “Eventually we‘ll reach a point where everything is working optimally until the next growth spurt occurs.” Although the city‘s Water Smart conservation project has been successful in reducing water demand, it won‘t have a major impact on reducing the need for the expansion project.