Annual General Meeting

The Society's AGM was held on August 22nd.

In addition to the usual business conducted, there was some discussion about water rates (a slight adjustment to the rates was approved) and, of all things, the mosquito control program.

Because of a Board member leaving the community, one vacancy was filled by a new member.

Minutes of the meeting and financial statements were presented and circulated by e-mail.  Any member wishing further information should contact the Society.

Water Quality During the Spring Runoff

It's spring.  Snow in the surrounding hills is melting.  As everyone here knows, this increases the sediment in the streams and rivers and makes our water source, Kootenay Lake, more murky, or turbid.

While increased turbidity isn't necessarily unsafe, it's considered an indication of risk.

If you want to read a short article from Interior Health, you can find it here:

http://www.interiorhealth.ca/YourEnvironment/DrinkingWater/Documents/turbidity.pdf

In our water system, we have several ways of dealing with turbidity and monitoring the safety of our system.

1. We filter the lake water and clean filters regularly
2. We treat with chlorine
3. We test chlorine levels regularly
4. We can also test for turbidity

Recent tests (as of April 30, 2013) show Lake water from our intakes (about 100 ft deep) to have a turbidity of around 3.5 NTU.  This would merit a water quality advisory if we were drinking unfiltered and untreated water. Anything over 5 NTU rates a boil water advisory.   After filtering and treating, turbidity measurements show around 0.5 NTU or less.  This is what you are getting in your taps and is considered "good" according to IHA.

Chlorine tests done every few days show a free chlorine level of around 0.5 ppm at the reservoir.  Sometimes it's bit higher, very occasionally, it drops below that level.  We aim to keep the free chlorine level at around 0.4 to 0.7 at the reservoir.

We also take water samples regularly to send in for bacteriological tests.  If bacteria were still in our drinking water, it would show up in our test results.  Fortunately, we have had quite a few years of negative results other than a small number of positive results following a drop in chlorine levels as a result of an equipment failure.  Generally our regular monitoring catches these situations before they become problems.

If anyone has questions or concerns about our water or would like more information about our testing procedure, contact us at prwus.info@gmail.com.

Pine Ridge Water Utility Society is owned and operated by members of the Society which is made up of residents of the Pine Ridge subdivision.  We depend on volunteers.

Tracking Down Leaks

 Over the past while, perhaps a few months, some of us have had this feeling that water use seemed to be unusually high.  As an example, in the past couple of weeks, we were running the lake pumps for 8 hours/night and only seeing an increase in reservoir level by 1 foot, about half what we would expect for that amount of pumping time.  Discussion between a few society members focused around where such a leak could possibly be.

The first problem in tracking down such a leak is that you'd expect to see some water lying around.  We're talking about a possible couple thousand gallons of water every day.  We looked around and saw nothing.  Meter readings at the end of March showed that water use at every residence was completely normal, so we abandoned the idea that someone was running a water slide/water park in their back yards.

Finally, we decided to start isolating parts of the subdivision and started with the lower west side of the system, turning the water off for most of one afternoon and running the lake pumps to see if a normal rise in reservoir level was restored.

With some relief, that is exactly what we saw happening.  So, where was that leak?  We happened to notice some water in a standpipe access pipe and then saw that the ground around one shutoff valve was a bit damp.  A few passes with a shovel revealed very saturated soil and when one property's water was turned off, the leak stopped.

We had an excavator in the next morning and the leak, tracked down to a small crack in a brass fitting, was repaired.  A good example of a $2 part in a $100 hole.

Thanks to Bill J and Dave for taking part of their day to fix the leak and the sleuthing that discovered the source.  With any luck, we should be back to running the lake pumps for 3 or 4 hours each night.

High Water

 
 A cool, wet spring accompanied with unusual amounts of rain contributed to one of the highest water levels in Kootenay Lake this year since 1974.


This picture shows how close the high water came to the intake building which houses the electronics for the pumps.


One radio commentator I heard today noted that if it wasn't for the dams on the Kootenay River, the water level in the Lake could have been as much as 7 feet higher.

Field Trip - Ymir Treatment System

As part of my own little field-trip day, I visited the water treatment system at Ymir. This is a small community of 200+ people between Nelson and Salmo. It gets it's water from a surface supply (a stream west of town) and has a new treatment system operated by RDCK.

The Regional District took over Ymir's water system a few years ago, and installed a modern treatment system. I visited the plant with one of the RDCK's techs who was there to do some routine testing.

The plant pumps stream water through 3 large tanks that contain sand filters, then through a set of 5 micron and 1 micron cartridge filters, then through a set of parallel UV tubes and finally past a chlorine injector system. All system parameters are monitored in real time and the computer controlling this can be accessed by the techs from any of their computers.

Some pictures of the inside of the treatment plant are here.

RDCK has had, up to this fall, 16 water systems that they manage. After this fall/winter, they will be adding 3 more systems.

Conferring with Interior Health

Took part of the day Wednesday to go on a bit of a field trip. One objective was to see the water treatment at Ymir (see next post), and the second objective was to meet with Renee Ansell, Interior Health's Water Safety Officer.

The meeting in Nelson was quite productive; it was useful to discuss some of the issues we're looking at with our water system. We discussed how we might best consider a Cross Contamination Control Program (CCCP), where the most likely sources of contamination might be and what would be effective ways to deal with them.

We also talked briefly about a couple of possible maintenance issues and potential upgrades and what we would need to do before we start those projects.

It was also nice to hear that our water system is well-regarded in the way we operate our system. Always nice to know the regulator is happy with what we're doing.

Setting the Record Straight - Again!

The Society has decided to respond to recent allegations about our water meter project by issuing the following statement:

"It has been brought to our attention that an election campaign worker has been making inaccurate allegations about the water meter project in Pine Ridge Subdivision. The facts are: meters were approved by a very substantial majority vote of Water Society members at it's 2007 AGM; the Provincial ombudsman dismissed one complaint, finding our process fair, democratic and transparent; the meters meet all required certifications; the Regional District's building department has no issues with our meters. For accurate information about this project, please contact the Society."

We're not sure why or how this became connected with municipal elections, but we suppose stranger things have happened. As has been said elsewhere....people who disagree with you are entitled to their own opinions...but not their own facts.

For the full, much longer story, read this earlier post....