Vernon gets $42.9 million for water facilities

The water department of Greater Vernon Services is currently completing a $42.9 million upgrade of its storage and treatment facilities, with the last part expected to complete by late 2009.

Water Treatment

VERNON

The water department of Greater Vernon Services is currently completing a $42.9 million upgrade of its storage and treatment facilities, with the last part expected to complete by late 2009.

The projects include: the new McMechan Reservoir; a separation project which took residents from an open reservoir to a new system; Mission Hill Water Treatment Plant and Kalamalka Lake Pump Station upgrade, and a new Duteau Creek Water Treatment Plant. The Duteau Creek Water Treatment Plant, costing $19 million, addresses water quality concerns such as turbidity, colour, and disaffection for local residents in the area. It also allows for interconnection of two supply systems, reducing the cost of pumping during winter. The new facility, awaiting provincial grant funds, is expected to be operating in 2009 with construction starting in 2007.

Completed this summer is a separation project where two residential areas, Bella Vista (at a cost of $3.8 million) and Swan Lake (at a cost of $6.9 million) were removed from the open Goose Lake reservoir domestic system and placed onto a new system connected to Kalamalka Lake water supply.

Contractors on the Bella Vista separation were LB Chapman Construction of Vernon (water mains), Mierau Contractors of Kamloops (pump station) and Hoban Equipment Ltd. of Sicamous (domestic and irrication services) and design and construction services by Stantec Consulting in Kelowna.

Finished off in spring and summer of 2006 were the Mission Hill Water Treatment Plant costing $5.9 million and the Kalamalka Lake Pump Station Upgrade costing $0.7million.

The construction of the new treatment plant was built on the site of the old Mission Hill reservoir and 550-pump station. Suppliers to the project included reactor contractor for UV disinfecting awarded to Trojan Technologies Inc. and on-site sodium hydro chlorine generator awarded to MIOX Corporation for chlorine disinfecting.

The design was by AEKWL Consulting, a partnership between Associated Engineering (Burnaby/Kelowna) and Kerr Wood Liedal (Vernon). General contract awarded to Maple Reinders Inc. in Kelowna. The upgrade to the Kalamalka Lake Pump Station was completed by the same engineering team and general contractor. Capacity at the pump station increased 35ML per day to 58 ML per day.

Total plans for upgrading the Greater Vernon Services water system by 2015 are estimated at $100 million which includes filtration on both Kalamalka Lake and Duteau Creek, which are major water sources.