Comments on RDNO’s grant application.

During the 2014 election campaign a high pressure referendum campaign attempted to convince Greater Vernon’s water customers to approve the borrowing of $70 million for the completion of the Master Water Plan. The plan included, among other items, a filtration plant at the Duteau Creek Water Treatment Plant for $26.5 million.

Consultants and staff insisted that the selected Option #2 was the most cost effective solution to GVW’s water problems. There were public presentations and media advertisements urging the ratepayers to approve the borrowing.

Some politicians opposed the proposed MWP. They demanded an independent review of the proposed plan but the majority rejected the request. They accepted the words of the “experts” that there is no need for a review. There could be no improvements to the perfect plan. So, the referendum proceeded. It failed decisively. 

At the November 3, 2016 GVAC meeting the following resolution was approved: 

“The Greater Vernon Advisory Committee will submit a $5.6 million grant application to the federal government for ultraviolet treatment at the Duteau Creek plant.” (Morning Star, November 6, 2016).

Apparently, there were ways to improve the plan. The above news clip reflects one of the benefits of the failed referendum. Could an independent review uncover additional improvements? The current plan must be reviewed and compared to Option #7 using this new evidence.

Applying for a grant before the plan is completed is like repeating the mistake we made in 2004 (or 2006?).

The $30 M DCWTP was built with the help of a $13 M grant from Senior Governments. The vision of a grant was too much temptation to resist and GVW decided to build a $30 million 162 ML/d  treatment plant without first completing the entire plan. We are still working on it.

Based on the 2012 MWP proposal we will only need 110 ML of water from the DCWTP for the filtration plant. That makes 47% of the DCWTP production capacity redundant. If we divert even more untreated water to farms it will render redundant even more of the DCWTP.

Had the referendum succeeded, by now we would be building a new $26.5 million filtration plant at Duteau Creek using a maximum of 110 ML/d of pre-treated water. Instead, staff is proposing a new option for $7 million instead of the filtration plant. That would already be a saving of $25 million over the original proposal. Could an independent review uncover some additional savings? Quite likely.
 

Why did this proposal not surface earlier? Why did it take four years and a failed referendum to discover this possible alternative? After all, Kelowna has been using UV treatment since 2005. Our own Mission Hill Treatment Plant is using UV treatment since 2006. It is already in our system. Currently, GVW is working on improving the intake system at Kal Lake and it is expected that the Kal Lake water turbidity would be further reduced. More reason why filtration could be deferred even longer.

So, now that this treatment appears to be an acceptable alternative, why not reassess the MWP options in light of this new revelation?
 
If the use of ultraviolet treatment instead of filtration at Duteau is acceptable by IHA we can expand its use at Mission Hill and close DC. We are already serving 80% of our customers from MH. Instead of building a $50 M filtration plant at MH we can negotiate a filtration deferment and spend our money on extending the MH distribution system to customers currently using Duteau water. We won’t have to spend the $7 M either as we already have the UV facility at Mission Hill. That’s $57 million savings. 

Also, we must critically review the cost estimates of the total separation. We are relying entirely on the estimates provided by our current consultants. Their first estimates of separation costs were only a fraction of the current one.

We could return to using the original VID irrigation system only for agricultural crops. It was very efficient for irrigation prior to 2006. It just could not provide domestic water. If you wish to have an idea of what the VID and later NOWA’s  “domestic” water quality was from 1970 to 2006 check out the video:

 

The video demonstrates the tremendous amount of work, money and processing associated with producing the same quality water that is produced by Kalamalka and Okanagan lakes for free. Furthermore, there are no nasty byproducts, referred to as “cake”.

There are other reasons to review the plan. The original plan was based on a number of faulty assumptions (statistically referred to as Type II errors) which I’ll discuss later.

An independent review is a must!

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