Detailed information on GVWU's water source and use for 2009.

Don Quixote Note: This is a Posting from the Coldstreamer's Blog that I have reposted here for all interested water ratepayers.

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The information below is supplied by the Manager, GVWU in response to specific questions. I believe it will provide useful information for all water customers.

1. Attached is the 2009 Source and Use chart.

a. This shows in 2009:

i. On Kal Lake of the 16,141,907 cubic metres [cm] of licence we typically use about 8,000,000 cm or about 50%.

ii. Kal Lake represents 35% of our total licence amount of about 46,300,000 cm.

b. Annually about 95% of the water from Kal Lake comes from the Westkal Pump Station representing about 7,700,000 cubic meters

c. Annually about 5% of the water used from Kal Lake comes from the Coldstream Creek Pump Station representing about 380,000 cubic meters.

d. We do not measure the Westkal flow to Coldstream separately from the City of Vernon. As a guess I suggest about it is about 7% or 500,000 cm.

2. The Cunliff reservoir has a top water elevation of 500.7 m. The Westkal source top water level is at 483 meters. Therefore the Westkal source cannot feed the Cunliff reservoir unless a pumping system is built. This pumps station and pipeline would be about $350,000 in a class D estimate.

a. Last year about 520 homes in the lower areas of central Coldstream were switched from East Kal to the Westkal intake. This includes Kidston Elementary School. This was done to take advantage of the Ultraviolet [UV] treatment at the Mission Hill WTP [MHWTP]. The 520 homes joined about 500 homes in west Coldstream near the collage that were already serviced by the Westkal intake.

b. There are lower areas east of Kidston school that could be converted to the MHWTP, but there needs to be some pipelines constructed to assure the area is still served for fire flow, and Duteau water can flow east to provide irrigation and fire flow. The cost for this work has not been estimated, but would be in the order of $150,000.

c. The current plan has this area being serviced by treated Duteau water which will likely be available in late September.

i. here are no additional capital costs in this option.
ii. The reason we had to implement this now [i.e. before water treatment is at Duteau] is the failure of the Antwerp wells.

1. We do not have enough supply from the East Kal intake to provide water for the increased water demand and provide suitable fire flow.

2. During the low water use periods in the late fall, all winter and early spring we can probably put these customers back onto the East Kal system if the Duteau Plant does not meet treatment expectations. Our long term goal is to decommission the East Kal intake. To upgrade the existing East Kal intake would require replacing all of the structures currently in place, including the building and the intake pipe. The existing intake is in about 4 or 5 metres of water. The intake should be in at least 20 metres of water, and preferably 30 metres of water to provide adequate isolation from land based contamination. The existing building has a very poor wet well and is ill suited to a proper pump system with a separate motor control room. UV would have to incorporated now, and room would have to be left for a filtration system. An estimate has not been done, but this would be at least $700,000.

d. No matter how we service people now, treated Duteau water will be used to service people currently on Kal. It is the back up system to Kal sourced water. Also most of future growth requires more people on Duteau.

Regards Al Cotsworth, P.Eng Utility Manager