Burns Lake council is considering building a water treatment plant to filter the manganese in the village’s water systems.
Manganese is responsible for the discolouration of tap water sometimes seen in Burns Lake. The village says this one of the most frequent complaints they receive from the public.
According to village staff, the concentration of manganese in Burns Lake is “relatively low,” and manganese has no known adverse health effects. However, Burns Lake’s director of public works Dale Ross says this is something that the village needs to address.
“Currently, with manganese, there’s only an aesthetic problem, but we heard in informal talks with Northern Health that the standard for manganese may be up for review and could change in coming years,” he said.
The proposed project to build a water treatment plant in Burns Lake would involve three different phases.
Phase one involves a feasibility study, which would help determine the scope of the project and costs moving forward in future years. This phase would take place in 2017 at a cost of $30,000, of which the village hopes $10,000 would come from a grant.
Phase two involves a pilot testing where a small scale plant would be set up in Burns Lake to determine what kind of plant the village would require. This phase would take place in 2018 at cost of approximately $46,000, of which the village also hopes $10,000 would come from a grant.
Phase three would involve the installation of the chosen system. This final phase would take place in 2019, and the estimated cost would be anywhere from $2 million to $4 million. However, Ross says it’s impossible to have an estimate of the cost at this point.
“It is impossible to have a firm estimate for this project until the study and testing have been completed to determine which type of system would work for our water,” he explained.
During Burns Lake’s budget meeting last week, councillor John Illes suggested having both phase one and two completed in 2017, and using the village’s reserves as opposed to applying for the two $10,000 grants.
“Looking for two $10,000 grants puts the project two years away,” said Illes. “I don’t want to rely on these two $10,000 grants to get the full project up and running.”
Illes said that this would free up staff time, allowing them to search for bigger grants for phase three of the project.
Councillor Susan Schienbein agreed with councillor Illes and asked staff to figure out if having phases one and two completed this year was feasible.
Once the village has enough information on how much the water treatment plant will cost, councillors said there might be a referendum in town so that taxpayers can decide if they would want the village to move forward with the project.