North Battleford city council has approved a three-pronged strategy to provide water to city residents in the wake of the Husky spill of 250,000 litres of oil into the North Saskatchewan River on July 21.
The spill shut down the F.E. Holliday water treatment plant and made it impossible to use the North Saskatchewan as a supply of water for the city. North Battleford has since relied entirely on groundwater treated at Water Treatment Plant No. 1.
But that supply is limited, and with the spill impact now believed by city officials to be an at-least-12-month event, the city was left scrambling to find alternatives.
Following days of meetings held by the city’s Emergency Operation Centre team to address the situation, director of finance David Gillan presented the plan to the special council meeting held Tuesday during the noon hour.
It consists of three steps.
The first initiative, one previously announced, was the deal to purchase excess potable water from the Town of Battleford.
That had been announced last Friday and that agreement was already signed prior to Tuesday’s council meeting.
The plan is that North Battleford would be supplied water treated at the Battleford water treatment plant. Battleford relies entirely on groundwater collected from wells.
According to North Battleford officials, this water line is to go from Battleford to the back end of the F.E. Holliday location and would not need to be treated again. It is to then go directly into the distribution system.
The pipeline itself is an overland pipe running along the old Battleford bridges in the river valley. There will be vehicle restrictions placed on the road to Finlayson Island with the pipeline in place.
While there had been reports that water from the line might be ready by Tuesday night, Gillan reported to council it was more likely the water would be flowing by the end of the week, after testing had been done and the line was fully commissioned.
Testing is the last step before it becomes available, Mayor Ian Hamilton confirmed at a news conference held after the special meeting.
The second initiative is to drill more supply wells for Water Treatment Plant No. 1.
Council approved the proposal to drill four wells in the estimated amount of $1,842,000. That would bring the number of producing wells up from 10 to 14.
According to city director of operations Stewart Schafer, in response to a question from council, this would bring up capacity at that plant from 200 cubic metres/hour to 300 cubic metres/hour, a 50 per cent increase.
The water from the four new wells should be flowing by the end of August, according to Gillan.
The third, and most challenging, initiative is to bring in filtration equipment on a temporary basis to pre-treat the North Saskatchewan River water and remove all traces of hydrocarbons from it.
That would allow F.E. Holliday to reopen with water from the river. Gillan noted there are still “technological challenges” they were still working on, but did not feel those were insurmountable.
Gillan said at a news conference later on that the city had been in discussions with General Electric Water Systems about the filtration system. According to Gillan, the solution they have been working on with the city is a “double-pass” filtration system. The first is an organoclay that is good at filtering hydrocarbons, and then it would pass through an active carbon filter as well to make sure it is totally clean.
“We expect that at the end of that process that the water will have hydrocarbon content of next-to-zero, if not zero,” Gillan said. “And then that will be able to go into our F.E. Holliday treatment plant from front to back, and be retreated again, and then be dispersed into the city.”
In that news conference Mayor Ian Hamilton noted there was still testing that needed to be conducted prior to implementing this plan, to make sure it complies with city and Water Security Agency regulations.
Collectively, these three options are expected to make up the shortfall and provide water over the next 12 months. The water from Battleford should flow in early August, from the new wells by late August, and the target for implementing the third phase is mid-September.
It was noted the water from the Battleford pipeline would not be available during the winter due to the freeze-up.
However, the remaining supply of water should be enough. Gillan pointed out that “city demand in winter also drops, so there will be a tradeoff.” The other two sources of water can bring them through to the spring, he said.
The plan to address the water supply needs through these three initiatives came together following meetings of the Emergency Operation Centre starting last Monday, July 25. These meetings included representatives from the Water Security Agency and the city’s external engineers.
Numerous alternatives had been considered. There had been consideration given to such options as accessing Battle River, which Gillan said was a “real alternative” until the Battleford option became available.
The water from Battleford is also potable water, as opposed to the Battle River water which would have needed to be treated.
Other options such as pipelines to Lloydminster or to the South Saskatchewan River were also looked at, but Gillan made clear these options were too expensive.
“Just unbelievably crazy numbers,” said Gillan of those costs, adding “we’re not even considering it, because we have a plan that can replace the lost volumes at F.E. Holliday plant.”
In addition to these initiatives, the city will be adding additional staff not previously approved in the budget.
They are increasing the number of water treatment plant operators from six to seven, as the filtration equipment will need a full-time operator.
As well, the number of Community Safety Officers is increasing by one, to seven, to address a need for increased security for the existing plant so there is “zero-chance,” said Gillan, of any issue of security with that plant, as well as the need for year-round pipeline infrastructure monitoring.
While a precise estimate of the costs is not known the spill is characterized by city officials as a between-$6-and-$9 million event.
The expectation from city officials is that Husky will pay for it all. Gillan said the city has had “close discussions with Husky and we’ve had a very good relationship with them. They don’t want to be a bad corporate citizen, and we want the water supply that’s been lost recovered.” He expressed further confidence North Battleford would recover the direct costs of the incident.
At a news conference later, Gillan estimated the up-front costs from the three water initiatives to be around $3 million. Overall, “we’re looking at an event here, at least that we can see at this point, of $7-8-9 million dollar event here, if it’s a 12-month event, and that’s what we’re planning for.”
Council unanimously approved the resolution to go ahead with these three initiatives as well as the additional hires. As well, they formally approved the agreement to provide water service with the Town of Battleford, as well as with Catterall and Wright, consulting engineers, who are designing and constructing the pipeline system.
With respect to the current North Battleford water supplies, the city has thanked the public for its cooperation in following the extensive water restrictions put in place last week. Gillan reported that because of the public’s conservation efforts, “that’s what’s allowing us to maintain our reservoirs in reasonably good condition.”
City manager Jim Puffalt credited his team at City Hall for managing this incident.
“There’s no immediate solutions to the water quality in the river. We have to look at a year down the road,” said Puffalt. “There’s really good options here that are very prudent, cost-effective for Husky, and make sure that we look after our people which is the most important thing.”
Puffalt also noted that the situation with the reservoirs this year is far better than last year, when a water hammer incident impacted the F.E. Holliday water treatment plant and seriously impacted the reservoirs.
“We were very close to the tipping point,” Puffalt said of last year’s incident. “Quite honestly, it’s a lot nicer to be able to manage this one as opposed to wondering if we were going to run out of water any second now. So we thank the community for all their hard work. What we learned last year is that we don’t want to do that again.”
There were a number of questions from councilors at the special meeting and one of them was raised by Councillor. Greg Lightfoot about whether wells could be put up near the F.E. Holliday plant. But Schafer confirmed that wasn’t a viable option. F.E. Holliday is a surface water plant that treats dirt and clay, “and may soon be having to treat hydrocarbons,” Schafer said, while WTP No. 1 treats manganese and iron from the groundwater.
Councillor Kelli Hawtin asked about cost recovery from Husky, and Gillan said reinbursements should “not be delayed.” He did not expect the city to be carrying the costs for a protracted period. Gillan also said the city has cash available to draw on as required.
“We’re able to withstand a few months of bridge-financing, if you like,” Gillan said, adding “this is not our responsibility - this is someone else’s responsibility.”
Mayor Ian Hamilton also cleared the air on the watering of flowers still going on by city workers, noting that water was brought in from the Town of Battleford.
There was not a lot said at the special meeting about the actual condition of the river following the oil spill, but city officials made clear the spill was having an impact.
Shoreline samples taken from near the F.E. Holliday water intake area last week were shown to the media. They contained oil found in the river and on grass on the shoreline.
In a news conference held immediately after the council meeting, Mayor Hamilton noted the quick action and the information provided about the spill “allowed us to go into proactive mode and prevent the introduction of any contaminated water into our system. That would have been quite a bit different story we’d be talking about right now if that had happened.”
Hamilton said he’s had good communication with all stakeholders and daily contact with Husky representatives, and also with government agencies and provincial ministries, including with Premier Brad Wall.
The mayor confirmed a visit by the Premier was still in the works. He also elaborated more on why the Premier’s initial offer of a visit was postponed while a visit from Trent Wotherspoon, leader of the opposition, went ahead.
Hamilton noted the Wotherspoon visit was a last-minute one that people had to clear their calendars for. As for a possible premier’s visit, Hamilton made clear last week would have been too soon.
“The offer was extended to us last week to have the premier visit the situation,” said Hamilton.
“At that time, when I was speaking with him I thought, personally, we don’t know enough to have him actually come here and so that it would be a meaningful visit. He could have come and watched the water flow down the river, you know, and that’s basically what it would have been. We hadn’t had the time to generate and craft a response such as we have today, and I would not have had any indication on what information to tell and discuss with him as to what our needs might be, our opportunities. So it’s in the works.”
