Good clean water, and plenty of it to drink.
In a city that sits in a bowl bordered by three pulp mills and a downtown rail yard, we may have reason to complain about our air quality, but the river-fed aquifers that give Prince George its drinking water add an incomparable quality to our lives.
As much as Prince George gets slagged for its soupy air, complaints about the taste of our water are rare, especially when compared to other cities.
Calgary's drinking water starts pure from melting glaciers in the Rockies, but by the time it flows downstream to the city, it contains enough surface contaminants and waterborne parasites to require an extensive and expensive filtration process, which often leaves the water tasting like chlorine.
Toronto draws its supply from polluted Lake Ontario, and by the time it gets to a tap, there are enough dissolved solids left behind in the treatment process to cloud a drinking glass. Water you can chew. Yuk.
It's become a global concern, especially in developing countries, with an estimated 1.1 billion people or 18 per cent of the world population lacking access to safe drinking water. So consider yourselves lucky, Prince George.
"It's something to be proud of, that we have such great water," said Blake McIntosh, the city's supervisor of utilities engineering. "We tend to take it for granted but we are really lucky. We have a large supply of quality water.
"All of our water is extracted underground, we don't obtain it from surface sources. It's naturally-filtered water and there is less susceptibility to bacteria and contaminants because it is underground. Compared to other cities, the taste of our water would rate really high."
City water is tapped from 14 reservoirs that are filled from 11 well pump stations, five of which are used only in warm-weather months when more water is needed for irrigation. Aquifers as deep as 100 feet are constantly being replenished by underground rivers. Water is filtered through pourous sand and gravel beds that remove most solids and is collected through a series of screened intake pipes set into the aquifer which lead into the vertical-turbine pump shafts at each station.
Other cities that draw directly from rivers, lakes or open reservoirs require water to be forced through sand filters and percolators. Several stages of treatment are necessary to extract contaminants and that adds to the cost of water delivery.
Each pump station in Prince George is monitored by four water operators, whose daily shifts require them to visit each building to record measurements and conduct tests to determine chlorine and fluoride levels. In case of electrical failures, most stations have backup diesel generators to keep the pumps running. That could become of critical importance in the case of a forest fire threatening the city.
The $15.5 million Fishtrap Island pump station opened on the south bank of the Nechako River in September 2006 and the impact was immediate on water quality in the Hart area it serves. The previous source, from the Foothills and Nechako Road well, drew water that contained dissolved manganese deposits that oxidize in the water when they come into contact with chlorine, and that left rusty-brown stains in toilet bowls in Hart-area homes.
"We did have an issue with the old well and manganese, but we have good quality water coming into the aquifers now and this has eliminated that," said Dave Smith, the city's water operator in charge. "The people in the Hart noticed the improvement the day the new pump station opened."
There is enough capacity at Fishtrap to serve the entire city. It now operates using two pumps at the surface, but the infrastructure is already in place to add an additional two pumps if needed. Plans are in the works to tie the Fishtrap station into the Cranbrook Hill reservoir, which serves downtown. Surrounded by hills, the city's geography lends itself to keeping pressure constant in city taps. Each reservoir is located on or above a hill.
The Fishtrap station is equipped with a SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) computerized monitoring system, which helps water operators measure levels, and record and interpret the data. Seven sentinel wells have been installed around Fishtrap, and they will be tested every two months to give operators advance warning if any contaminants seep into the aquifer and help ensure the safety of the water supply.
Much of the danger to treatment plant employees has been taken out of the chlorination process and the cost of chlorination has decreased as a result of a process the city adopted seven years ago. Rather than transporting highly-hazardous bottles of chlorine gas and mixing it with liquid bleach, the chlorine used to purify the water is made right at the pump stations using bags of water softening salt. The salt is added to a brine tank and chlorine is produced in a chemical reaction by subjecting a three-per-cent brine solution to DC current. The chlorine moves from the brine tank to a solution tank, and that liquid is added to the water supply as needed. The amount added depends on the turbidity of the water. A target level of .05-per-cent chrlorine is required for tap water.
"We put in anywhere from five to eight parts per million of chlorine but what we want as a residual is pretty much undetectable," said pump station operator David Bobbie.
Chlorine dissipates rapidly over time and distance and has to be added further down in the system at the reservoirs to ensure it will still be in the water by the time it gets to users.
The only other treatment is the fluoridation process. Since 1955, fluoride has been added to water to reduce dental disease and tooth decay and preserve tooth structure. It was re-introduced to the city's water supply in January 2001, after a four-year interruption to install a $500,000 injection system, which maintains a fluoride ion concentration of 0.7 milligrams per litre
While not everybody is in favour of fluoride, Dan Rogers encourages people to test the water that comes out of the tap and compare it to the bottled drinking water sold in stores and challenges them to tell the difference.
"The water in Prince George is as good or better than bottled water - we have a good aquifer and some of the best water in the world, and we have a great system in place to deliver it," said Rogers. "A lot of people are still on well water within the city limits and the quality of that water is pretty remarkable as well. We've made specific moves to ensure we can continue to produce that quality of water."
Prince George people love their water, sometimes a little too much. During one hot thirsty July day last year, the Fishtrap pump station sent a record 11.2 million litres surging through the turbines into the 4.5 million-litre Vallencher reservoir.
Although there is virtually an unlimited supply, there is a price to pay if city residents don't practice water conservation. Greater volumes going down the drain mean more sewage flowing to the plant at Landsdowne Road.
"Unfortunately, we have a reputation in Prince George of using more water than just about anywhere else in the country," said Rogers. "The more we use, the more it costs to treat that water at the other end. That impacts on what we pay in utility bills."
