City of Dawson Creek to borrow $1 million to construct reclaimed water truck filling station

That 30-day process wrapped up on Nov. 18 with 41 responses received, far less than the 712 (10 per cent of the total electorate) needed to trigger a referendum on the borrowing bylaw. Chief financial officer Shelly Woolf said while the bylaw allows the City of Dawson Creek to borrow up to $1 million, how much of that will actually be needed won’t be known until construction commences early next year.

The truck filling station will act as the distribution system for the City of Dawson Creek’s portion of the treated effluent water that will be produced once the ongoing construction of a new waste water treatment plant is complete. Under the terms of an agreement with Shell Canada, Shell will be allocated the first 3,400 cubic metres of treated effluent water per day in exchange for providing $9.75 million towards construction of the treatment facility. The City of Dawson Creek would be entitled to the next 1,100 cubic metres per day, and would be responsible for contributing $1.5 million towards necessary upgrades to the treatment system, an estimated $200,000 annually to operate and maintain the treatment facility, and will cover the full cost to build the truck filling station.

Once the truck fill station is built, industry users will be able to purchase the effluent water much in the same way as they purchase bulk potable water now. The rate charged by the City of Dawson Creek for that product has not yet been decided, said Woolf, but she said they will look at incorporating the cost of borrowing into that rate to recoup those costs over the next 10 years. The annual debt servicing cost for the loan is estimated at just over $188,000, based on an interest rate of four percent.

There was some controversy over whether the city would have enough product to meet the needs of local industry, but it is estimated based on average flows that the minimum produced would be 4,000 cubic metres per day, meaning the City of Dawson Creek would have at least 600 cubic metres per day to sell. Greg Dobrowolski, special projects manager for the City, said while they don’t know exactly how much effluent water they will be able to treat in one day, the waste water produced by the city is not as variable as the water consumed, which is influenced by peak watering times in the summer, and seasonal changes to the flow of the Kiskatinaw River.

“The flows coming into the sewer system are pretty consistent, and are only going up,” he said.

As for the overall progress of the reclaimed water project, Dobrowolski said construction of the treatment plant remains on budget, as it is a fixed-price contract, but is about five days behind schedule, though the contractor is looking to change construction plans to get back on schedule. He said it is anticipated to be complete by middle of next February, and then commissioned and operational by the end of February.

However, he said not much can happen with the construction of the truck filling station if the ground is frozen, so depending on the weather, that part of the project won’t be completed until the end of next April.