The future of local water will be the focus of an open house taking place tonight (Thurs. March 28) at the Gibraltar Room in Williams Lake.
Manager of Public Works, Patrick Mahood said the Water Management Strategy for Williams Lake was developed in tandem with Urban Systems working with the engineering department, development services, and municipal services over the past year.
“The open house is going to be presented by Urban Systems,” Mahood said.
“They’ll be representatives from the City there as well. Water Wise-The Cariboo Chilcotin Conservation Society will also be on hand and we will have a representative from Interior Health.”
Mahood said the City currently has four operational deep wells-three are at Scout Island and one is at Duncan Road.
He said the water is drawn from about 40 meters down and heads out into their distribution system from there which is four booster systems and nine reservoirs.
Citywide water metering which Mahood said is a key component in conservation and when looking at successful grants for a water treatment plant which would remove manganese is part of the overall future strategy.
“Proving where your water comes from and how you’re reducing, how you’re managing the water is something we’re very interested in.”
The biggest water use according to Mahood is likely irrigation with flows from the winter time increasing from 6 to 7 million liters per day up to 28 million liters or more in the summer time.
The only current treatment of water is chlorination with onsite sodium hypochlorite.
The open house runs from 4 pm to 8 pm.
“The next steps after that would be to use this water management strategy looking down the road and use it as a bit of a road map to prepare for the future,” Mahood said.
“This is an opportunity for the public to come down and voice their opinion, and this won’t be the last time there’s any sort of opportunity for public input moving down the road towards water treatment and water meters I’m sure.”