Martin Johansen speaking to council Monday – says a water strategy is needed because of a shortage of water supply this year.

“Without water, there is no Oliver” say the Mayor.

The discussion centered around a new well, a plan to get grant money and to re-inforce bonds between the Town and OIB on cross connections of water and sewer services.

Johansen said a report by True Engineering is a “nudge” to develop a water supply plan. He said test wells on parkland should be done as soon as possible so that the Town is “shovel ready” once financing is in place.

Councillor Dave Mattes said it was imporant to get the cross connections complete so both the OIB and Town are protecting and expanding domestic water resources.

Mayor Johansen said – less water or diminished capacity could impact future development of the area.

Councillor Larry Schwartzenberger  said if this provincial grant is not available then the Federal Government should be asked to help with financing and enhanced domestic supply.

 

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Disaster Mitigation and Adaption Fund Grant Application

True Engineering to Town of Oliver

“We have assembled this proposed project description to facilitate discussion and to help the Town decide if the project scope is suitable. We do require a council resolution for the application, and we are targeting the meeting in September for that resolution.

The Disaster Mitigation and Adaptation Fund (DMAF) has an overall objective of strengthening communities’ resilience to potential infrastructure failure caused by natural disasters such as but not limited to avalanche, drought, earthquake, temperature, flood, landslides, wildfire and storm. Recently in BC there has been significant funding related to flood response and mitigation. Wildfires were also at the forefront of people’s concerns this year. Our proposal however is to focus on the disaster of drought.

This year several communities in the South Okanagan experienced a loss of domestic water supply capacity caused by drought which resulted in declining aquifer levels. Specifically, the Penticton Indian Band, Osoyoos Indian Band and the Town of Oliver each had to limit water use to maintain health and safety levels in their water systems.

The Town of Oliver had a drought response plan in place which they implemented in an organized fashion, resulting in less noticeable impacts to the community. The Penticton Indian Band and Osoyoos Indian Band did not have such a plan in place and as a result had a stressful summer attempting to manage competing demands for their limited water supplies.

During the drought response plan implementation by the Town of Oliver, the works staff noted that the aquifer levels at the various Town of Oliver well sites were recovering when the wells were being rested. Staff felt that it would have been beneficial if they had one more well online to cycle through, thus extending the time period in which the wells could rest. The Town recently had to remove the CPR and Lions wells from service due to contamination by Uranium. The partial capacity of one of those wells was replaced by the Buchanan Road Well but at the same time the domestic water system was extended to the rural areas thus increasing the number of domestic customers. The new demand was offset by water conservation measures and the Town ofOliver has been able to meet Maximum Day Demand without replacing the full capacity of those lost wells. The Town has however lost some resilience in the water supply by losing two primary production wells. Had these wells been in place, the Town of Oliver would have been able to cycle their supply wells with longer rest periods and reduce the risk of drawing one of the wells down to the point that supply is compromised.

Further to the above, the Town’s water master plan indicates that standby power should be added to one of the well sites. Standby power would further add to Town of Oliver’s water supply resilience in the event of a disaster causing a long duration power failure. The Water Master Plan also recommends a new crossing of the Okanagan River be constructed to provide resilience to the ability to move water from west to east, providing a redundant feed to the Oliver Hospital. The crossing was proposed to be located at the public works yard and cross the park property to the watermain on Spillway Road.

We are proposing to construct a new domestic supply well at Oliver Parks and Rec. The project would include the following scope:

1. Identify sites available in the Parks and Rec area
2. Drill test wells at preferred sites
3. Conduct Environmental Impact Assessment for preferred site
4. Apply for new water license for production well
5. Construct new crossing of Okanagan River
6. Construct new supply well including
a. Pump
b. Electrical
c. Controls
d. Pump house
e. Chlorine Generation System
f. Chlorine Contact facility
g. Standby Power

The above scope has an approximate value of $3,100,000. The DMAF funding available for this scope is up to 40%. Therefore, the Town of Oliver would need to fund approximately $1,860,000. The above works will all be located in the same area and create a singular project that fits the grant program criteria well.

The grant program notes that the funding could be increased to at least 100% if the project primarily benefits an Indigenous community. In our recent meetings we discussed possible ways the OIB could benefit from our works. While the OIB does benefit from the increased resilience of the Town of Oliver domestic system, as they benefit from the services in the community, it will not be possible to say they are the primary beneficiary from the above proposed scope.

It is possible to construct an emergency connection between the Town of Oliver’s water system and both the OIB community system and OIB Senkulmen water system. All three water systems are proximate to each other near the South end of Tuc El Nuit Lake. For Part 2 of this grant application, we propose to add the necessary watermains to make the interconnection of the systems possible in an emergency situation. We would not propose to physically connect the systems but to make the provisions such that they could be connected within 24hr should the need arise.

The required watermains would add $500,000 to the scope of the project and be located in the Tuc El Nuit and Canyon Desert resort areas. The Town would not necessarily benefit from these works, but they would provide an emergency option to help the OIB should either of the OIB systems be impacted severely by any emergency. We propose that 100% funding be requested for the emergency connection portion (Part 2) of the project. The above has been discussed with the OIB and they are willing to provide a letter of support for this project. The OIB sees the benefits of having the option of an emergency connection to the Town system.

It is possible that more funding than the 40% for the work in Part 1 will be available because of additional benefit to the OIB. We will work with the Town and the funders to explore that possibility. For the purposes of a council resolution, we recommend that council be prepared for the worst case being only 40% funding of Part 1 and 100% funding of Part 2.”