WESTLOCK – The water system in Westlock supporting the region is currently being upgraded with completion set for July.
The Westlock Water Regional Water Service Commission (WRWSC) secured a grant in 2022 to upgrade the regions water system including the water treatment facility and work began in the fall.
“I can't stress hard enough that this has had nothing to do with the water,” said Deb Hamilton, Water Commissions Manager talking about the water quality challenges experienced in Westlock.
Funding was received from Alberta Municipal Affairs to first evaluate the system and identify critical items that needed to be urgently addressed.
There were four urgent upgrades identified through the assessment.
A Water for Life grant application was won for $1.5 million, 52% of the estimated costs of three million as per Hamilton.
The money was received in May 2023 and a tender went out for a contractor to do the work.
The most immediate item to be addressed was the monitoring system which was obsolete to a point that parts could not be ordered for repairs.
Upgrading the monitoring system was the first priority, costing $630,000.
The SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) system monitors the water treatment and distribution of water with alarms, data collection through-out the system, and system controls.
The second urgent item to be addressed was the replacement of Clarifier One within the system as per Hamilton.
Clarifier one is out of service for the next nine weeks while it is being torn down and re-built.
Completion is set for the May long weekend.
The cost of a clarifier is around $1.7 million and it had to be ordered from the states taking months to arrive, said Hamilton.
At one time the Town of Westlock water system was able to run on one clarifier within the system. That clarifier was purchased in the 1980s.
Water demands have increased with the expansion of the system and that has put additional stresses on the active clarifier.
A clarifier removes solids from raw water to clarify water entering the treatment system.
With the establishment of the WRWSC the three municipalities put a focus on the region’s water.
The system stretches over 90 km of pipe serving Westlock north to Fawcett, east to Clyde and Vimy and south to Pickerville and Busby.
From 2010 until 2021 WRWSC were building onto the Town of Westlock water treatment plant to accommodate the region’s water needs.
Two huge water reservoirs were installed by the river bringing the water reservoir total within the system to three.
Recently new filters worth $130,000 were replaced while upgrade work has progressed.
The Town of Barrhead Operations group continues to dedicate the majority of it’s time to monitoring water quality and maintaining the system while the upgrade activities occur.
Both the WRWSC and the Town of Westlock are required by the Alberta government to consistently supply water quality samples for monitoring and evaluation.
“The new SCADA system is operational,” said Robin Benoit, Town of Westlock Operations Director at the Westlock Council Meeting on March 17.
“While installation of SCADA was being done, we found faulty valves on the ammonia and chorine sensors and valves. We're still experiencing a few issues on those.”
The active clarifier has been having some issues and attention has been given to ensure it remains operational.
The Town of Westlock Operations group has set-up a back-up plan with using a portable clarifier if need be.
There have been heater issues from the river intake through to the water treatment system and several repairs have been made since the last Council report according to Benoit.
