By DOUG WAHLSTEN
Having abandoned its moratorium on new hook-ups to its water supply system, the North Salt Spring Waterworks District (NSSWD) has announced big plans for changes to its system that could incorporate more than 1,000 new customers in the near future.
At an open house on Oct. 30, they presented a water master plan (WMP) that included estimates of what all the changes in hardware and infrastructure would cost their customers. The bills would not be paid via general tax increases because the enhancements would benefit only the customers of NSSWD, roughly half of the island population.
Enhancements and repairs are anticipated in several domains. First and foremost is the new Maxwell Lake water treatment plant plus the associated Clearwell reservoir and Shepherd Hills pumping station. The design has not yet been finalized, but it is certain to cost in excess of $10 million, not including land acquisition. Then there is the piping system to distribute all that water. Current pipes add up to 76.3 km, and large portions of the network are old and in need of repair or replacement. About 34 per cent of those pipes are antiquated asbestos cement.
Part of the WMP entails a flood of new connections of homes to the water system arising from 252 housing units (potentially 554 people) already promised water by NSSWD mainly on Channel Ridge, plus an anticipated potential increase in the population of Ganges by 660 units (about 1,320 people), and an unspecified growth of population beyond Ganges. Those customers would pay monthly fees for water consumed, but first there could be a need to pay for the added infrastructure to make the water flow. The WMP estimates that system capacity would need to increase by 22 per cent from the current 38.1 litres per second to 46.5 litres per second to support new connections for a population increase of 1,200 in the near future.
The original plans for the water system decades ago took no account of water that might be needed for fighting fires, assigning zero litres per second for fire flow. It is recommended that there be emergency water storage near the more heavily populated regions of the island for fighting fires equivalent to 25 per cent of the mean daily discharge for six hours and 60 litres per second for 1.4 hours for a single house (in Ganges only), which would require larger pipes in many neighbourhoods. There would also need to be a larger storage reservoir in Ganges plus pumps to boost line pressure. Low pressure that currently exists in 12 places in the system, including four places in Channel Ridge (pages 6-2 and 6-3 of the WMP) would need to be remedied. More rural portions of the system would continue to exist with no fire flow provisions.
The very preliminary budget for the Maxwell plant is currently $10.6 million. I estimate piping for 9.9 km of new water mains plus upgrading another 3.6 km would cost more than $2,000 per metre of pipe. Add up these improvements and additions to the system, and the total at the present time, would be about $46.3 million, without provisions for the seemingly inevitable cost overruns. This huge bill would need to be approved by a referendum and could need to be financed by borrowing at moderately high interest rates.
The WMP is an ambitious proposal that has not yet been presented to the people of Salt Spring Island for discussion and approval. It is the first system-wide plan for the entire NSSWD water supply. It is only an interim assessment of future needs because of impending changes to the official community plan and perhaps the mandate of the Islands Trust that could radically alter prospects for population growth here. It includes no provisions for building or servicing affordable housing. Neither does it address concerns of First Nations.