By Juliet Kadzviti

Pipeline progress ongoing, city hopes it will be functional in next two days

Jul 25, 2016 | 6:15 PM

Efforts continue in Prince Albert to avoid a water shortage.

City Manager Jim Toye provided residents with an update on the city’s progress to make sure there was enough potable water in P.A., late Monday, July 25 afternoon. Earlier in the day, the city declared a state of emergency effective Tuesday.

He said the pipeline, which is currently being built will be powered by 15 pumps with 400 horsepower and will be ready in coming days.

“We do believe that they could be complete by tomorrow, but then again we are allowing that day to get everything all set up to trial it, I mean, when you have that much water there could be holes in it, there could be issues with pressure so it’s probably going to be mid-afternoon on Wednesday,” he said.

Toye said the city has a 48-hour potable water supply, clarifying Mayor Greg Dionne’s earlier statement that said the city had a 24-hour supply.

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He said if the water supply runs out the city can turn to its reserve pond.

“Right now we have a retention pond on the west side of the city. It contains enough water, if we can properly treat it, to create safe potable water for about an additional four or five days,” he said. “We are treating it right now, we are working with the Water Security Agency to make sure that when we are done with this pre-treatment that it’s going to assist us in going through our water treatment plant.”

He said the pipeline will help for the predicted two-months, and maybe a little longer, but added it could not be used in winter.

“We are going to use the pipeline for as long as we have to, we are looking at different alternative sources, trying to look at some new innovations, cause this is not going to be something that can go away quickly,” Toye said.

Dionne said an early estimate predicts the pipeline will cost over a million dollars. 

In regards to the bylaw approved Monday, Toye said the total amount per infraction will be $1,400, $400 of which is a surcharge. Repeat offenders will be charged this amount for every offence.

“My goal is to ensure that we don’t give one ticket, we want our citizens and our businesses to comply with the bylaw,” he said, adding he hopes the hefty fine will serve as a deterrent.

Toye said there has been a decrease in water usage in the city and it was “critical” over the next few days to save water.

“We can tell by the numbers we have seen so far that the residents and the businesses are complying with the request that we made yesterday to minimize the use of water,” he said.

The city will have daily press conferences with updates at 3.30 p.m. until Friday.

jkadzviti@panow.com

On Twitter: @julietkadzviti