Selected Morning Star Newsclips - In case you missed them.

 

 

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Pressure grows for water plan

“The (failed water plan) referendum is coming up on three years and we’re marginally coming along on how to finance it,” said Doug Dirk, Greater Vernon Advisory Committee director.

 Director Dirk is too kind!

Actually, the Master Water Plan has been going on since 2001, for over 15 years. It was supposed to be completed by 2007 (see MWP 2002 page 11-1). Then politics came in. Over $70 million later, amazingly,  we are irrigating agricultural crops with treated water, a huge waste of ratepayers money. Treatment cost runs about $1.5 million a year. Unfortunately, this water has chlorination only for disinfection while it serves about 20% of the domestic customers. It needs more treatment.

Now GVWU is planning to spend additional $8+ million so they can irrigate crops with even more expensive ultraviolet treated water. That is an extra treatment cost on top of the $1.5 million for a total of likely over $2 million annually. As the Chair person remarked, with UV we hope to be able to defer (but not eliminate) filtration for a bit longer. If filtration also has to be installed that will make the $8 million UV treatment redundant. It will also make the treatment costs significantly higher.

Kelowna and the South East Irrigation District (SEKID) were facing the same problem as Greater Vernon and VID did. Kelowna chose to take the gradual improvement plan by improving the water quality for the greater population of Kelowna first by installing UV treatment on the Okanagan Lake water supply. They have deferred filtration as the lake water quality was good without filtration.

When the problem with SEKID finally came to a crunch Kelowna went to the Government with the problem. They succeeded in obtaining a $44 million grant that will be used for total separation of the irrigation and the domestic water supply.

Greater Vernon Utility officials believed that government grants could only be used for treatment plant construction. Kelowna proved it not to be so! GVU wasted our money (and government grants as well) for constructing an ill-advised, money sucking treatment plant at Duteau because "...grants were available for treatment plant construction".

Kelowna is getting to work on a totally separated system that will provide highly treated Okanagan Lake water for both SEKID and Kelowna customers.

There is still time to reverse the current MWP direction. Projected additional cost to complete the MWP as it currently planned is roughly $150 million. About $110 million of that is proposed for Duteau Plant projects. In addition there will still remain the annual treatment cost of about $2 million or more. These moneys would be more than adequate to cover the total separation costs.

The current masters of the MWP have been at it for nearly 17 years with little to show for their efforts. They are now bogged down in protecting the current direction. Since the construction of the Duteau Creek WTP there was a desperate effort to maintain the plant in the system even if it costs more to the taxpayers. They would not admit that there were mistakes made. New information has not been incorporated into the plans. For instance, the initial projections for water demand were hugely overestimated. We are still using those estimates in our plans to create larger than necessary infrastructure at higher than necessary costs. 

It is obvious that a second opinion is needed to evaluate the MWP. When a potential expenditure for the plan is  over $215 million we should not rely on the opinion of a single group that ruled for over 15 years with questionable success. We must insist on getting a second opinion.

Staff and politicians try to eliminate further input from the ratepayers by using inflated water rates to collect funding for the financing of the water plan. This way they would not have to go for another referendum. It's kind of an "end run" to avoid the repeat of the 2014 defeat of the referendum.

However, this action is totally inappropriate as the current ratepayers will not get the benefit of what they are paying for. The benefits will only come after the moneys are collected and the projects are completed. For many that might be too late! Talk to your elected politicians and express your opinion to them!

My earlier activities: In 1991 I wrote a report with supportive evidence that total separation of the domestic and agriculture systems is the most cost effective option to follow.  MWP 2002 affirmed the same principle.

In 2006 I appeared in front of the RDNO Board of Directors requesting a Judicial Review (click for news report) of the direction of the MWP. It was refused. Instead, staff wrote a report stating that the Plan, which is incomplete even today,  was heading in the right direction. It seems that was not true.

This might be my last effort to appeal to my colleagues and to the Greater Vernon Water customers to demand an independent review of the plans. I have no more voice on GVAC. Neither staff nor politicians wish to hear opposing opinion.

Perhaps they will have to start listening to you, the customers! So voice your opinion or pay the price!

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Selected Morning Star Newsclips - In case you missed them.

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Selected Morning Star Newsclips - In case you missed them.

 

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Selected Morning Star Newsclips - In case you missed them.

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Selected Morning Star news Clips - in case you missed them.

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Letter to the Morning Star and a response.

In response to Mr Simon’s letter to the Morning Star let me assure him that the plant had no “major equipment malfunction”. There was a problem with the BC Hydro transformer that had been a point of contention by two disagreeing partners: GVWU and BC Hydro for some time. Had it been resolved earlier this problem would not have happened. 

There are all sorts of pumping needed to allow even DC water to be delivered to many of the customers. There was only an electrician needed to attend the MH problem. A stand by generator could have avoided the MH shut down. We have trained staff to do emergency services as part of their jobs. Any expense to rectify small problems like the one  we had on Boxing Day would be infinitesimal to the cost of supplying filtered water to hay fields and other agricultural crops even if we ignore the cost of the construction and operation costs of additional facilities to provide such filtered water. Kalamalka Lake and Okanagan Lake may eventually be invaded by mussels if we are not vigilant. GVWU already has made plans to eliminate the problem by these nasty organisms by including an extra pipe to the Kal intake extension so that chlorine could be injected into the lake at the intake discouraging any mussels from the neighbourhood.

Just to be accurate, the DC plant cost is closer to $30 M. Power is less expensive than the annual treatment costs at DCWTP. Furthermore, even today a lot of power is needed to distribute water to residents of higher elevations like the Predator Golf Course, Silver Star Foothills, the Rise, Turtle Mountain, etc. Contrary to Mr Simon’s statement we do have significant water rights on Okanagan Lake if we consider changing the point of diversion of our licenses from BX Creek, Deer/Coldstream Creek and Kalamalka Lake to Okanagan Lake. That would be a net zero transfer and with justification should be no difficulty of achieving it.

As far as the local group is concerned: they should be commended for getting involved in the future of their water supply just as you should be commended for voicing your opinion. The issues are not as simple as they appear to the casual observer. Some of us noted that during the election campaign many of the political aspirants who originally supported the Master Water Plan changed their position on their support of the referendum. They assured the electorate that they would vote against the referendum question. Obviously, even those intimately involved in the process were not totally sure that it was the right direction. That’s why they appointed the Stakeholders’ Advisory Committee (SAC). Unfortunately, only staff and Consultants are permitted to provide information to this Committee. Information they are given might be considered biased. No "opinion biased in the opposing side" (this writer) nor an independent expert were allowed to review the current plan and comment on it. Hopefully, despite these less than fair decisions by the majority of GVAC the SAC will make the right decision in the end.

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Selected Morning Star Newsclips - In case you missed them.

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GVAC Returns Leaders - (The Empire strikes back)

Posted on 1/7/2016  

by Pete McIntyre

 

Directors on the Greater Vernon Advisory Committee have decided to stick with the current leaders.

Juliette Cunningham has been acclaimed to another one year term as chair of the parks, recreation, culture and water committee of the regional district
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The Vernon councillor says they have some big items on this year's agenda.

"Some of the big issues are the culture plan, and the master water plan, both significant issues. Those are pretty big, and then we have all the emerging issues that arise like pickleball and tennis."

Coldstream mayor Jim Garlick was returned as the vice chair by acclamation, after a nomination for Coldstream's Gyula Kiss was not allowed as he is not an RDNO board member.

Garlick was also nominated to run for chair by Kiss, but declined.

"I think I have enough things on my plate right now," Garlick tells Kiss FM. "And the other thing is I like people who are not mayors having that opportunity to chair other things, taking those roles and responsibility,  and councillor Cunningham has done a good job."

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It came to me as a surprise. Of the last 25 years I have been an elected member of Coldstream for 16 of those years. I served in various capacities starting as an Alderman which changed to Councillor, than as Mayor, RDNO Director, Okanagan Basin Water Board Chair and for the past six years as a Councillor and one of the GVAC reps for Coldstream. Never in the past have I been considered a lesser member of a committee than the rest of the members. Except for today! Even though I was duly elected by the taxpayers of Coldstream I was declared ineligible for the position of Vice Chair! A totally new rule! Amazing! And Coldstream paid over $2.7 M for water in 2014.

  

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Morning Star Poll results

Are you confident a stakeholders committee will review Greater Vernon's master water plan independently?

Cast Your Vote

You have already participated in this poll. Thank you!

Current Results

question	result
Yes	4
No	27

DISCLAIMER: This web poll is informal, not scientific. It reflects opinions of site visitors who voluntarily participate. Results may not represent the opinions of the public as a whole. Black Press is not responsible for the statistical accuracy of opinions expressed here.

Consider a fictional story:

There is a jury trial in a court of law. The independent jury is to make a decision on the merits of a plan that could have alternate options. The presiding judge and the alternate judge both support the proposed plan. The lawyers and the expert witnesses are all supporters and/or creators of the plan in question. The proponents of the alternatives can't present their case, they are not represented by Counsel and have no expert witnesses allowed. Is this fictional trial fixed?

Hopefully, the jury will see through the attempted fix!

"David Sewell, the CAO of RDNO, says their goal now is to create a new master water plan for Greater Vernon.

"It's not an attempt to silence critics, it's to engage and walk through in a reasoned manner what we've done, what we haven't done and why the master plan is where it is, and if we have to make amendments we'll consider those things too."

"Sewell says creating a new master water plan will take input and conciliation on everyone's part.

"Everybody's got an interest in water.  Everybody has valuable input and we've got to make sure we capture that relative to their use of water, the importance of water and also trying to get the people who haven't had an avenue to directly engage into the master water plan up until now." (KISS FM News, 9/18/2015).

I guess that invitation is not extended to everyone, only to those whose views are slanted in a specific direction.

Terms of Reference for the SAC is accessible here. Note that all references relate to the 2012 MWP.

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Selected Morning Star Newsclips - In case you missed them.

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Survey!

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