Lone Voice Drowns in Water Debacle?

Seems so anyway.

District of Coldstream councillor, Gyula Kiss' letter to the editor today is worthy of attention--indeed alarm--despite his omission of how to fix the water debacle in the North Okanagan.

Seems somebody spent a crapload of our money doing things wrong.
With more that needs to be spent just to satisfy Interior Health's filtration demand.

"Imagine the public reaction if we would spend 90 per cent more...they (public) would be furious."

  DoC councillor Kiss

So how did we get to this point?
Even Kiss doesn't place blame on decision-makers.
He apparently knew all along that the master water plan had cracks, but we can only surmise that it was Mayor Garlick who didn't give councillor Kiss the authority--until recently--to be at the decision-making table.   (See October 19th posting here, and June 28th posting here, and March 10th posting here).  And one more from Councillor Besso, in a letter to the CBC.

So who the hell was at the decision-making table?
Some dummkopf that shouldn't have been on the committee in the first place?
Likely several dummkopf...

But--in my view--unless you know just who did what incorrectly in the maze of the North Okanagan's bureaucracy, you won't begin to understand how to prevent costly foibles from again accumulating...one upon another...and another.

Was it the city engineers?  If so, we can fix that.
Or the consultant's engineers?  If so, we can fix that.
Or the consultant?  We can fix that too.


Kiss' letter today:  (highlighting:  blog author)

Water Plan History Detailed:
"Master Water Plan 2002 (MWP 2002) was produced 12 years ago.  It was going to revolutionize our water distribution system.  The plan recommended total separation of domestic and agricultural water.

MWP 2002 would have cost water customers $72 million ($5,040,000 annually for a 20-year period).  No need for the Duteau Plant as all crops would have been irrigated with raw water.  Only one treatment plant would be needed.

Two years later MWP 2002 was basically trashed.  Addendum 2004 was produced.

This Addendum was a total reversal of MWP 2002.  It was a return to the old VID model with mixed domestic irrigation water delivered in the same pipe.  The irrigation water was now more expensive.  The $28-29 million Duteau Plant's annual debt servicing cost is about $2 million.  Treatment cost in 2011 at Duteau Creek was $1.7 million (for a combined annual cost of $3.7 million).  Domestic customers only used about 1.5 million cubic metres in 2011 of this expensive water.  The remaining 80 per cent of domestic water was supplied by the Mission Hill (MH) plant.  (Blog author:  The Federal government contributed $12 million towards Duteau Creek's construction).

The MH treatment plant was upgraded to double its capacity and provide additional treatment by way of ultra violet irradiation.  Cost of the upgrade was $7.5 million (annual financing cost is about $525,000).  In 2011 treatment costs were $625,577 for a total annual cost of $1,150,577.

Using the above figures, MH water was costing about $0.25 per cubic meter, Duteau Creek's water about $2.14 per cubic meter.

If all of the domestic water was treated at MH, the total cost of treatment for all domestic water would have been about $1,600,000 instead of the 2011 combined cost of about $4,900,000.

This huge expenditure did provide some benefit to the DC customers.  However, there are many more who have absolutely no benefits.  I will use my situation as an example.

My water source prior to 2002 was Kalamalka Lake (KL) from the Coldstream Creek Road pumphouse.  It provided me with chlorinated KL water for which I paid about $0.56 per cubic meter.  In 2013 I paid $1.83 per cubic meter for DC water which is the same quality that I have received from KL:  chlorinated DC water.

To date Greater Vernon Water has spent ~$67 million on MWP infrastructure.  The referendum of 2004 only approved a maximum of $35 million.  We spent $32 million above the approved maximum.  Imagine the public reaction if we would spend 90 per cent more on the referendum-approved sport fields at the college site.  They would be furious.  Yet there was no public outcry about the 90 per cent overspending on the MWP referendum funding limit."  (Blog author:  so where was council's 'united' outcry????)

"The simple reason for this overspending was the fact that there was no set plan.  Requests for little projects of $2 million here, another project for $2.5 million there till we got to a point where the consultants and staff were basically stuck with the over-sized DC treatment plant.  The sad thing is that the $67 million is only a down payment.  The newest "plan" is proposing an additional expenditure of about $111 million.  This would include two filtration plants to the tune of $57 million (judging from previous experience a whole lot more).  Even with this additional investment an estimated 9,000,000 cubic meters of filtered water would be used for farm and orchard irrigation.

That is more than the total domestic consumption, all at the domestic customers' expense.  It would also create a triple distribution system:  one for domestic use only from the MH treatment plant, one for raw water distribution to some agriculture properties and one for a mixed agriculture/domestic use.  This is the system that would use the filtered water on crops.  You can read more on my blog:  "coldstreamernews".
                                  Gyula Kiss, Coldstream councillor


And, perhaps oblivious to further dullling the public's now-numbed sense and sensibility, this article from the same newspaper issue:


"Referendum taps into $70-million water plan, R.Rolke:

"Greater Vernon residents are being asked to fund big ticket water upgrades.  The Greater Vernon Advisory Committee decided Thursday to ask voters in November to approve borrowing up to $70 million for phase one of the master water plan.

'I have read all of the technical reports and I believe we are getting a fair compromise by keeping costs down as much as possible but meeting the requirements the Interior Health Authority keeps putting on us," said director Mike Macnabb.'

"Directors Bob Spiers, Gyula Kiss and Maria Besso voted against the motion, largely because the plan includes $26.5 million for filtration at the Duteau Creek treatment plant.

'I am not convinced Duteau filtration should be part of the package,' said Spiers.  'It should be at Mission Hill, where 80 per cent of the people get their water.'

"Besso pointed out that much of the Duteau water goes to farm crops and not residents."  'We are going to put filtrated water on agricultural fields and it will be a waste of money,' she said. 

"But Dale McTaggart, general manager of engineering, says there is more pressure to meet regulations with the Duteau system and the IHA has initiated orders to force the matter.

If the November referendum were to fail, direction would be sought from IHA.

'They may order us to do the work," said McTaggart.

"In terms of crops receiving filtrated water, Macnabb insists IHA sets the tone for any work."

'We have no control over some things like the future requirements of IHA,' he said.  'They may say that every drop of water, even agriculture, has to be treated.'  (Blog author:  and Macnabb seems OK with that, with nary a squeak of disgust!)

It was suggested by director Bob Fleming that IHA is driven more by reducing potential liability than improving water quality.

'Filtration is dubious at best.  We provide good water,' he said.

Other aspects of the water plan's phase one are $6.4 million for Aberdeen dam improvements, $9.9 million for domestic distribution investments, $19.5 million for separating domestic and agricultural water in Lavington, $3.5 million for twinning a transmission main and $2.6 million for an Okanagan Lake pump station."

"The moral of the story is don't trust Addenda," offers Kia, donning the Clint Eastwood expression, "hang 'em high."


Maybe Gyula Kiss should speak French...would he get through to them then?

And where's Mayor Garlick in all this? 
It's the mayor that appoints councillors to committees and they report back to council, and to him directly.

Wishy-washy mayor, especially when it comes to the really important stuff.

"He's probably mapping out another bike path," defends Kia.

Kudos--albeit long overdue--to Michael Stamhuis, the architect of the sensible Master Water Plan.
The plan that's now in tatters.
He should've carried a very big stick.