By Steve Hubrecht
The Canal Flats water treatment saga continues.
The Water Protection and Advisory Committee held another public information meeting recently, covering much of the same ground as the initial public meeting.
This second meeting was held on Monday, March 17 at the Canal Flats Civic Centre, and like the first such meeting held in February, it drew a large crowd.
The committee has now spent several months gathering information about looming major upgrades to the village’s water system, which quite likely includes a new treatment plant. Canal Flats residents have expressed concern about these changes for months. Those in attendance at the March 17 meeting gave voice to those worries.
Water committee chair Gayle Lake explained, as she had before, that the committee does not get to decide what happens to the Canal Flats water system. The committee was created to write a report for Canal Flats council on the situation. That report should be complete by June, and then Canal Flats council will decide what to do.
Lake said that since the first water meeting in February, the committee has become aware that the community of Greenwood, in the Boundary Country, has a similar population as Canal Flats and it too has been mandated to build a water treatment plant.
“They (Greenwood) did push and did get money from the government,” said Lake, adding the water committee plans to talk with Greenwood’s chief administrative officer in the near future to find out more.
Many residents asked questions of the committee, and many others simply wanted to underscore their dislike of the whole situation.
“What you’re saying is we don’t get a choice whether we want chlorination or not. That doesn’t seem fair or right,” said one audience member. She explained she has lived in Canal Flats for almost 63 years, and she’d had “not one issue with the water . . . we’re being forced to do that (treatment). I think it’s a shame. We have the best water around.”
Another resident added: “Something’s screwed up with this whole system . . . I just can’t believe all the years that the mill was here. We dumped thousands of gallons of fuel in the mill yard. They used to put PCBs on the road and we checked our water on a monthly basis. There was never anything wrong with it. Now that the mill isn’t here, I don’t see what the problem is.”
Water committee member Araleigh Alexander replied that test results show the water in Canal Flats is pretty good “but we’re saying there is potential for risk in the area.”
The resident answered back: “I just don’t understand this ‘potential’ stuff. I don’t want chlorine in my system. If I wanted chlorine in my system, I’d move to Cranbrook or Invermere.”
Still another audience member asked what Interior Health expects Canal Flats to do and how quickly it expects the village to move. She wondered if it was possible to “drag it (the upgrades) out for 25 years.”
“We haven’t really been given a timeline,” replied Lake. She noted the committee is waiting for a report from engineering consultants Urban Systems Ltd. that will outline which parts of the village’s water and sewer systems need the most pressing attention, and how badly they need it.
The Urban Systems report should be given to the water committee in April. Lake did, however, express exasperation with how long Urban Systems is taking with its report.
“We’re (Canal Flats) that little fish in their big pond, and we’ve been pushing and pushing and pushing (for the report),” said Lake. “That has been extremely frustrating for us as a committee. That’s a big part of our project.”
Lake acknowledged the dissatisfaction in the crowd, saying she personally agrees with many of the points raised by the audience.
“You’re all telling us that you don’t want it. That is one of the first things we’re going to mention to council. Can we stop it? I don’t know. Maybe council will push it,” said Lake.
Several residents in the crowd were curious about the provincial funding for Greenwood’s new water treatment plant. No one at the meeting had definitive information, but several people cited a CBC report which outlined that even with the provincial government funding, Greenwood taxpayers still need to spend $1.5 million for the plant (out of a $5 million total cost).
Canal Flats corporate officer Sylvie Hoobanoff was attending the meeting as a resident (not as a village representative) but was still able to explain that such partial grant funding arrangements are typical.
“If you have a $5 million grant, the village would probably still be on the hook for 20 per cent (of the total cost),” said Hoobanoff, adding that this is a problem since the village does not have enough money to cover that 20 per cent. Further, the village has already nearly maxed out its municipal borrowing capacity, having taken out a big loan more than a decade ago to pay for sewer lagoon and reservoir upgrades then. This means, she pointed out, that even if Canal Flats residents and council suddenly decided they really wanted to start building the water treatment plant tomorrow “we have zero way of paying for it . . . so nothing is going to happen right away, at all.”
Former councillor Marie Delorme said she’s asked village representatives about the possibility of a water corporation being formed in Canal Flats. She’s seen the idea mentioned in village documents, made some inquiries, but said she hasn’t yet gotten a clear answer. Delorme explained that from what she understands, “it’s a way to raise funds by getting shareholders in our water, and the village would only be one shareholder out of however many . . . if the village of Canal Flats and all the taxpayers pay to upgrade the system, then they shifted into a corporation to run it, what’s the benefit?”
The water committee does not know very much about that idea, explained Lake, telling Delorme “we (the committee) were not privy to that. We were just told there was a possibility (of a corporation). We were told it was a utilities corporation. We weren’t given any specifics.”
A resident asked about the possibility of having to pay for metered water in the future.
“It’s very common outside of Canada, but we (the water committee) haven’t heard anything about that (in Canal Flats). We didn’t really talk about that,” replied Alexander.
