Dirk Minces Words

That's what I'd say.

Doug Dirk, GVAC Advisory Committee member was quoted in Gyula Kiss' blog on Thursday as saying "The (failed water plan) referendum is coming up on three years and we're marginally coming along on how to finance it..."

Gyula called his blog entry "Doug Dirk is too kind".
So it's kinda true.
The part about marginally coming along anyway.

But Councillor Dirk--a veteran (like Gyula) in Coldstream's political scene--is mincing words.
Side-stepping, actually.

Instead of admitting he hasn't a clue (same as his boss, Coldstream Mayor Garlick) in how to rein in the costly bureaucratic bush-beating, inefficiencies and bungling that today see chlorinated water irrigating farms, it basically underscores everything at Greater Vernon Water.
Doug Dirk wants residents to believe that the plan is still proceeding, albeit slowly.
He should've stated "frankly, folks, we're heading in a direction of no return.  We're totally screwed."

  

Let's see what Gyula posted under his heading of Doug Dirk is too kind:

Director Dirk is too kind!

Actually, the Master Water Plan has been going on since 2001, for over 15 years. It was supposed to be completed by 2007 (see MWP 2002 page 11-1). Then politics came in. Over $70 million later, amazingly,  we are irrigating agricultural crops with treated water, a huge waste of ratepayers money. Treatment cost runs about $1.5 million a year. Unfortunately, this water has chlorination only for disinfection while it serves about 20% of the domestic customers. It needs more treatment.

Now GVWU is planning to spend additional $8+ million so they can irrigate crops with even more expensive ultraviolet treated water. That is an extra treatment cost on top of the $1.5 million for a total of likely over $2 million annually. As the Chair person remarked, with UV we hope to be able to defer (but not eliminate) filtration for a bit longer. If filtration also has to be installed that will make the $8 million UV treatment redundant. It will also make the treatment costs significantly higher.

Kelowna and the South East Irrigation District (SEKID) were facing the same problem as Greater Vernon and VID did. Kelowna chose to take the gradual improvement plan by improving the water quality for the greater population of Kelowna first by installing UV treatment on the Okanagan Lake water supply. They have deferred filtration as the lake water quality was good without filtration.

When the problem with SEKID finally came to a crunch Kelowna went to the Government with the problem. They succeeded in obtaining a $44 million grant that will be used for total separation of the irrigation and the domestic water supply.

Greater Vernon Utility officials believed that government grants could only be used for treatment plant construction. Kelowna proved it not to be so! GVU wasted our money (and government grants as well) for constructing an ill-advised, money sucking treatment plant at Duteau because "...grants were available for treatment plant construction".

Kelowna is getting to work on a totally separated system that will provide highly treated Okanagan Lake water for both SEKID and Kelowna customers.

There is still time to reverse the current MWP direction. Projected additional cost to complete the MWP as it currently planned is roughly $150 million. About $110 million of that is proposed for Duteau Plant projects. In addition there will remain the annual treatment cost of about $2 million or more. These moneys would be more than adequate to cover the total separation costs.

The current masters of the MWP have been at it for nearly 17 years with little to show for their efforts. They are now bogged down in protecting the current direction. Since the construction of the Duteau Creek WTP there was a desperate effort to maintain the plant in the system even if it costs more to the taxpayers. They would not admit that there were mistakes made. New information has not been incorporated into the plans. For instance, the initial projections for water demand were hugely overestimated. We are still using those estimates in our plans to create larger than necessary infrastructure. 

It is obvious that a second opinion is needed to evaluate the MWP. When a potential expenditure for the plan is  over $215 million we should not rely on the opinion of a single group that ruled for over 15 years with questionable success. We must insist on getting a second opinion.

Staff and politicians try to eliminate further input from the ratepayers by using inflated water rates to collect funding for the financing of the water plan. This way they would not have to go for another referendum. It's kind of an "end run" to avoid the repeat of the 2014 defeat of the referendum. 

 However, this action is totally inappropriate as the current ratepayers will not get the benefit of what they are paying for. The benefits will only come after the moneys are collected and the projects are completed. For many that might be too late! Talk to your elected politicians and express your opinion to them!

My earlier activities: In 1991 I wrote a report with supportive evidence that total separation of the domestic and agriculture systems is the most cost effective option to follow.  MWP 2002 affirmed the same principle.

In 2006 I appeared in front of the RDNO Board of Directors requesting a Judicial Review (click for news report) of the direction of the MWP. It was refused. Instead, staff wrote a report stating that the Plan, which is incomplete even today,  was heading in the right direction. It seems that was not true.

This might be my last effort to appeal to my colleagues and to the Greater Vernon Water customers to demand an independent review of the plans. I have no more voice on GVAC. Neither staff nor politicians wish to hear opposing opinion.

Perhaps they will have to start listening to you, the customers!"

 

 

The unwelcome opposing views at Greater Vernon Advisory Committee meetings are the educated and analytical work of Gyula Kiss, who knows all aspects of numerous master water plans better than the GVW engineers and consultants combined.

So is Doug Dirk too kind with his politically-minced words?
Yup, suppose so.

Just another useless political comment from Doug Dirk, almost matching his political attributes.
Must be something going around.

"Maybe there's something in the water," Kia would've said.

Totally screwed up.

"Marginally coming along."
Maybe Doug Dirk is referring to how irrigated trees will fare under the soon-to-be UV-treated irrigation water!

Councillor Kiss Provides Clarity

As always!
Gyula Kiss' clarity is a necessity for the rest of us to understand what is going on.

I am referring to the spur-of-the-moment visit (blog story Wednesday, June 22/16) yesterday from Kari Gronvold, a technician at Salmon Arm's Gentech Engineering Inc, with the company's "Lavington Questionnaire", presumably because Gentech has been hired by Greater Vernon Water as a consultant.

For what?
Who knows?
Well, Ms. Gronvold didn't elaborate as to why Gentech was doing a questionnaire.

I assumed yesterday--and discovered today that I assumed incorrectly--that the questionnaire should've been only for those folks in Lavington who currently received raw water from Greater Vernon Water.

Boy, was I wrong as I discovered on Gyula Kiss' blog!

Get a load of THIS:
copied directly from Mr. Kiss' blog:

"

SAC members could have learned a lot by asking the politicians why they publicly rejected the referendum during their election campaign after they supported the MWP. They could have saved a lot of time.  Even Director Macnabb wondered about why there was a change of heart by many of the politicians:

 

“To turn around and say they support the plan, but not the $70 million to fund it is disingenuous in my mind,” Said Director Macnabb...
"“I’d rather work collaboratively than aggressively.... By stamping our feet saying you must do the funding, that’s not going to happen,” he says. (read all)
 

As it happened the Staff supported Option 2 prevailed, eliminating all of the options that would have used Kalamalka and Okanagan lakes for fully separated domestic supplies. Never mind the threat of climate change and higher treatment costs. 

The process will totally dismantle the original VID irrigation system and replace it with a complicated new system. There will be three supply lines (domestic only from Mission Hill, mixed irrigation/domestic water from the Duteau Treatment Plant and a new untreated irrigation water supply directly from Harvey Lake). All those systems will be the financial responsibility of the domestic customers. They will pay the cost of construction, operation and maintenance and the replacement value of the total system. The current 4% agriculture contribution of the total budget is a smidgen of those costs." 

Three supply lines?????
and a new untreated irrigation water supply directly from Harvey Lake?????

Where the hell is Harvey Lake?????

Find Waldo....er....a Harvey Lake.

So when the Gentech technician yesterday said that lines would be twinned, she was obviously referring to a new line on the north side of Buchanan Road to provide raw agricultural water from Harvey Lake?
 
I asked how much of the domestic/fireline (6 inch) had already been completed (50%?  80%  20%) over the years on the north side of Buchanan as people subdivided/development permits were awarded.  She said she didn't know, but agreed that residents here "choosing where to install a new treated domestic connection" would hinge on that information.  That's what was puzzling because we already have treated water to our homes and businesses...we simply don't have raw untreated water for irrigation.

Why would we choose to install a new (redundant, in my mind) domestic connection?

And I mentioned to her that I read in one of the Master Water Plan consulting reports (can't remember which one...MWP 2002? 2004?  Addendum?  MWP 2012?) that irrigation needs/usage on the north side of Buchanan Road was relatively low in the scheme of things, and likely would never justify the costs associated with providing twinned lines on Buchanan.

Well, so much for that, huh?

And where's the question on the Lavington survey that asks whether we are each prepared to pay for a new connection to our properties?  Or are there grants to pay for it (laughable...as that's our money too!)

So will Buchanan Road end up with 3 lines?

• the huge treated water pipe on the south side that takes treated water from DCWTP in a westerly direction to North Vernon and BX customers as well as fillling Goose Lake?

• the (partially completed?) "spurs" on the north side of Buchanan Road, i.e. that supply fire hydrants?

• then a third (albeit called twinned) line on the north side of Buchanan Road, presumably from the planned Harvey Lake source, that supplies raw agricultural water for irrigators here?  Despite consultants stating the irrigation demand here is so low as to not warrant the cost of providing twinned (that includes raw water) lines...

"GVW are the opposite of Master Communicators," states Kia.

They'll just blame the Stakeholders' Advisory Committee members...for selecting Option 2.