Importance of North Thompson water intake reinforced with recent emergencies

“There’s been some examples recently in Vavenby and what we saw just recently in Field where there were some major rail issues that have caused contamination of rivers,” noted Wightman. “So that would be an example of when we would look to potentially shut down our intake from the South Thompson and switch over to the North Thompson if there was an event that was going to cause a ‘Do Not Use’ order.”

The fear in the Kamloops area is there could be a similar derailment and subsequent spill into the South Thompson River, the site of the city’s main water intake. The new emergency water intake system on the North Thompson is now operational and is able to take directly from the river and distribute the non-potable water accordingly if there is such an event.

“The intent is to provide that critical water that we need for things like indoor domestic use for toilets and showers,” said the city’s utilities manager Greg Wightman. “It’s not going to be potable water. It won’t be drinking water quality.”

On Thursday, the local media received a tour of the new facility, which cost $10 million with the city successfully receiving $6 million in grants to build it.

Wightman says once the water is withdrawn from the North Thompson River, it will flow into the intake station’s wet well where three large pumps distribute the water up Yates Road to the North Thompson water reservoir.

That is when the water would be available to residents. The city says, though, the water would not be available for irrigation purposes.

The water intake project faced some opposition, mainly from former councillor Donovan Cavers, who said in 2016 it would be a waste of taxpayer dollars, not believing it would ever be used.

“If this $10 million facility is ever turned on in my lifetime, I’ll eat my shorts,” said Cavers at a 2016 council meeting. “But I don’t think that’ll ever happen.”

But most of city council agreed at the time an intake like this was needed. It was finished in November and since, staff have been ensuring the system is working smoothly.

While waiting for a potential emergency, the intake needs monthly maintenance.

“If this is activated, it’s a fairly extensive process that we’ll have to run with staff monitoring various components of the system,” said Wightman. “We do the maintenance activities monthly to make sure we are continuing to operate the system the way it would be if it was in full operation.”

But staff hope they don’t need to activate the emergency intake anytime soon.

by Chad Klassen

Importance of North Thompson water intake reinforced with recent emergencies

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