Poof...Suddenly a Miracle Proposed for Duteau

...anything to protect Sacred Duteau.
and for bureaucrats and elected officials to save face.

"If we can make this work for 20 years, there may be other technologies than filtration," said Dale McTaggart, general manager of engineering, of the plan to--now during SAC committee review of the 2012 Master Water Plan--try UV treatment and air scrubbing, reported by Rolke's article "Duteau filtration could be abandoned."

The cost for filtering Duteau's surface waters, the article says, is between $18 and $36 million dollars.
That's quite the range, typical of bureaucratic schemes where taxpayers foot the bill.
All that contingency stuff, you know, easily adds one-third to their spuriously-developed costs.

Spuriously-developed?
Yup...even consultants who formulated the 2012 Master Water Plan since the 2002 version was abandoned--when asked how current their figures were three years later during the grassroots-demanded "review"--stated "costs remain current."
Wow.

So news of the Greater Vernon Advisory Committee applying for a $10,000 provincial grant for the pilot project borders on a decidedly lame attempt to consider an option that was available three years ago (indeed longer).

Only one-quarter of the pilot project's cost will be funded by the B.C. government if the application is successful.  The $40,000 project will still proceed.

"...will still proceed" is what bureaucrats are used to saying to GVAC--and taxpayers--for a long time on the 2012 Master Water Plan.

"Give it a chance," suggests Kia critically.

A chance to protect Sacred Duteau.
Sure, will do.

SAC members may be pacified by this miracle, but hopefully they'll see through the veil of wool that protects Duteau Creek Water Treatment Plant.

Bureaucrats--and elected officials who approved their plans--just want SAC and the Citizens for Changes to the Master Water Plan to go away.
Permanently.

But we need to remember that any plan that continues applying chlorinated water onto farmlands remains unacceptable.
Now.
Or tomorrow.