City council approved Monday an additional $5.2 million worth of work on two projects meant to improve reliability of water service to the Hart.
Of the total, $2.8 million will go towards taking a new route for a second watermain connecting a reservoir just south of Vellencher Road that serves about 15,000 people in the Hart to a booster station west of Foothills Boulevard and north of North Nechako Road.
The existing watermain was installed prior to amalgamation of the Hart with the rest of the city in 1975 and crosses undeveloped, privately-owned land with a city right-of-way, engineering and public works manager Dave Dyer said in a report to council.
The original plan was to install a twin water main alongside the existing one but second thoughts were raised during the design process.
"Access to and along the water main right-of-way is very difficult for vehicles, especially during winter months," Dyer said.
Instead, the new watermain will be installed along the edge of Foothills Boulevard. The route is 960 metres longer and, for the steep sections along Foothills, a special type of piping will be used for the piping, which Dyer said is less likely to leak under the pressure.
The old watermain will remain in service as a backup should the new one fail.
The additional money will raise the total budget for that project to $6 million but Dyer said it will allow a connection to the existing water network at Highland Drive and improve the flow of water for fighting fires in the Hart Highlands neighbourhood.
Dyer also said it will end the need for seven smaller projects listed in a 2014 plan, saving $4.1 million.
As well, $2.4 million will go towards replacing a booster station that serves about 400 properties in the Hart Highlands-Vellencher area.
The original plan was to install an emergency power supply but during the pre-design stage it was determined that the existing station, at 36 years old, did not have the capacity to meet insurance underwriter standards for firefighting flow.
The new booster station will be built near the reservoir and will feature larger pumps and instrumentation for a Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) system and a weather station along with the emergency power supply. Total cost of that project will now be $3.5 million.
The city will dip into a reserve fund for water-related capital projects and lower-priority projects planned for 2018 will be deferred so total spending on capital next year remains unaffected.
