By North Salt Spring Waterworks District Board of Trustees
On Salt Spring Island, water is our most precious natural resource.
As the board overseeing the North Salt Spring Waterworks District (NSSWD), we have reached a significant moment in building the resiliency of our water system, which requires our ratepayers to support funding for a provincially mandated water treatment plant (WTP) at Maxwell Lake. After years of careful planning, designs have been developed, and a funding strategy has been prepared to keep costs under control. Now we are asking for your support for the most important component of our overall water-infrastructure plan: building the new WTP that will meet provincial standards for drinking water while enhancing our supply resiliency in the face of future climate change.
Ballots were recently sent to property owners and we are seeking a positive vote for a loan approval of $11.7 million that ensures the plant is built on budget (as the St. Mary Lake plant was). The 20-year loan payments have been accounted for with parcel tax increases in 2023, 2024 and 2025 to gradually adjust impacts on ratepayers. The only projected additional cost to ratepayers will be a final $100 increase in the parcel tax in 2026.
Our staff have developed a sound financial strategy to minimize the costs to ratepayers, including exploring all funding opportunities. A decision is pending on a grant application to the federal Canada Housing Infrastructure Funding (CHIF) program that would reduce the plant cost by $6 million, and we hope to hear about that application soon after the federal election concludes. If successful, that grant award will allow us to significantly reduce the parcel tax burden faced by ratepayers.
It’s important to note that in addition to providing safe drinking water, the Maxwell Lake WTP will add considerable resiliency to the future water supply of the NSSWD system as a whole. When completed, we can combine the Maxwell Lake and St. Mary Lake distribution systems, allowing Maxwell to support the St. Mary side during the critical summer period, while St. Mary assists Maxwell refill during the winter period. In short, the new plant will add much-needed flexibility to our management of a reliable water supply in the decades to come.
Please help us move this important project forward with a positive vote in the referendum. There are two opportunities to vote. The first is by advanced mail-in balloting between March 24 and May 6. The second is in-person voting on May 8, the day of the annual general meeting, between 2 and 6 p.m. at the Community Gospel Chapel.
Questions about the new plant can be answered in several ways, including by visiting our website (northsaltspringwaterworks.ca/projects), by emailing or by calling our district office (projects@nsswaterworks.ca or 250-537-9902). If you’d like to have a conversation in person, just drop by the office and one of our managers will be happy to discuss the proposed new plant with you.