CASTANET – Grant Scott, April 29, 2012 

The Water Supply Association was one of 13 partnering organizations to share the OBWB award.

The Okanagan Basin Water Board (OBWB) and 13 partnering agencies were presented with the “Award for Excellence in the Water and Waste Community” by the BC Water and Waste Association (BCWWA).

The award was presented in recognition of the partnership’s work on the three-year extensive Okanagan Water and Supply Demand Study.

“After several years of intense work, getting to understand the complex working of our water in the Okanagan – how much we have – how much we use – it’s wonderful to have that work recognized by the BCWWA with this major provincial award,” says Anna Warwick Sears, Executive Director of the Okanagan Basin Water Board.

“It is excellent to be recognized by BCWWA – the biggest water and wastewater industry group in the province. There is no greater honour than to be recognized by your peers.”

The award was presented to Dr. Warwick Sears and Dr. Wenda Mason, Manager of the BC River Forecast Centre, and accepted on behalf of the Okanagan Water Supply and Demand Project Partnership during the BCWWA’s annual convention this week at the Penticton Convention Centre.

In presenting the award, the BCWWA noted that the Partnership produced the most detailed assessment of water supply and demand ever conducted in Western Canada. As a result, the Okanagan now has the best water information in the province.

“This Partnership exemplifies the best of collaboration, innovation and applied research which will support future water planning in the Okanagan, but will also help address BC’s water challenges,” says Daisy Foster, Chief Executive Officer of the BCWWA.

“The impact of this work will be felt throughout BC for decades by providing new approaches and models that can be replicated in other parts of the province, and by informing BC water policy and law reform.”

BY BENJAMIN ALLDRITT, NORTH SHORE NEWS, April 22, 2012 

Could Health Canada guidelines cost Metro Vancouver $400 million?

The mayor of the City of North Vancouver is calling on the provincial government to ignore new federal drinking water standards that he says provide no health benefits but could create $400 million in new costs for Metro Vancouver taxpayers.

Darrell Mussatto, also chairman of Metro’s utilities committee, told the North Shore News “all the science and all the scientists say there’s no good reason for this.”

In November of 2011, Health Canada released a draft report titled Turbidity in Drinking Water. The federal agency proposes that the maximum acceptable level of cloudiness in drinking water be reduced from five nephelometric turbidity units, or NTUs, to one.

“You would not notice the difference in a glass of water,” Mussatto said. “We don’t know why they would come up with these stringent new regulations.”

In a March 16 report to the utilities committee, senior utility engineer Stan Woods wrote that the changes “have not been scientifically justified, are inappropriately more stringent than regulation in other parts of the world including the United States, and are not justified by any assessment of cost versus benefit.”

Woods noted that drinking water was not held to the same standard in such population centres as New York, Boston, Seattle, Portland and San Francisco.

Although the federal government can produce guidelines, ultimately the province will decide whether or not to adopt them. Early conversations with provincial staff, said Mussatto, have been promising. “The province is listening,” he said. “They understand the science isn’t there.”

If the higher standards are adopted, they wouldn’t have any effect on the new SeymourCapilano system, which already has filtration equipment. Upgrades would be required at the Coquitlam reservoir however, and that could cost $300 million to $400 million, Mussatto said, money that would come from around Metro Vancouver, in part from the North Shore.

The North Vancouver mayor said his committee will be urging the Metro Vancouver board to write to the province and the federal government advising them against the new guidelines. Mussatto also plans to travel to Victoria in early May and take the matter up with MLAs in person.

The potential for new water costs is particularly hard to swallow on the North Shore because strict new federal standards require a new wastewater treatment plant on the North Shore, which is estimated to cost more than $1 billion dollars. Funding these major infrastructure projects is a major regional issue, Mussatto said.

“We’re going to see a real tussle and a tug-of-war between municipalities,” he said.

Provincial surface water treatment objectives released

The Ministry of Health released its March 2012 report titled Drinking Water Treatment Objectives at the recent BCWWA conference in Penticton.

The long awaited standards provide much needed guidance to the province’s health authorities on the provincial standards for  treating surface water. The treatment objectives reiterate the 4, 3, 2, 1, 0 treatment objective for removal of viruses, protozoa and bacteria, and provide information regarding acceptable treatment approaches as well as providing raw and treated water turbidity objectives.

Follow this link to download a copy of the treatment objectives:  Drinking Water Treatment Objectives.