The Planning Committee at North Battleford City Hall received the latest water supply update Monday.
The main news was basically the announcement from last Friday by the Water Security Agency that surface water from the North Saskatchewan River is safe to use.
However, the City will continue to proceed with caution and will not be reopening the intakes. City manager Jim Puffalt outlined plans by the City to use a filtration system to filter water from the river going to F.E. Holliday Water Treatment Plant No. 2.
Puffalt noted that Husky has continued to “do what they should do” and paid for the cost of that temporary filtration system at the front of the plant.
However, the water is not actually going to be accessed through the regular intakes. Dredging work will be happening at that location, so the water that is being accessed from the river will go through the filtration system first, and then be treated at the plant.
“We don’t want to wait until July 15 of 2017 to dredge the river,” said Puffalt.
Puffalt added consulting engineers continue to work on the filtration system, and they were all “feverishly working” to get that installed before the winter freeze up, when the water line from Battleford is scheduled to be out of use.
“Our window is very short and we are working very hard to get that happening as quickly as possible,” said Puffalt.
In response to a question from Councillor Kelli Hawtin, Puffalt noted that even when the filtration system is up and running, F.E. Holliday would be running at about only 40 per cent of capacity.
