OLDS — On Nov. 27, administrative staff plan to provide town council with options on how to discount utility bills for people affected by the recent boil water advisory.
Also on that day, chief administrative officer Brent Williams is anticipated to provide council with a report on a meeting with the Mountain View Regional Water Services Commission (MVRWSC) regarding the advisory, scheduled to be held on or about Nov. 23.
Williams gave council that heads-up during its Nov. 13 meeting.
The boil water advisory occurred for three days, starting on Oct. 29. It was lifted Nov. 1.
Town staff worked closely with Alberta Health Services (AHS), Alberta Environment and the water commission to tackle the problem.
In regard to the utility bill discounting, Williams said, “we’re just trying to work through what is the most logical for our utility billing system to handle, as we do have upwards of 3,000-4,000 utility accounts.
“Regarding other losses, expenses, what-have-you, we have been directing businesses to look at their own liability insurance for business interruption and that seems to be an open and shut case for that insurance to take effect.
“Outside of that, we don’t have great answers right now on the liability side,” he added.
Coun. Darren Wilson asked Williams if he’ll be approaching the commission for reimbursement or whether the Town of Olds can obtain relief via insurance.
“I think our only avenue will be through either reimbursement or a reduction of future bills from the commission. Insurance wouldn’t be applicable here,” Williams said.
“The primary costs obviously are the flushing water and the overtime response costs associated with this.”
- RELATED: Olds boil water advisory lifted
Williams said the advisory was called by AHS on Oct. 29 after the municipal staff began receiving complaints from residents as early as 8:30 a.m. about cloudy water.
Town staff investigated and found that turbidity levels (cloudiness/level of sediment in the water) had skyrocketed. Williams said they were found to be at 11.5 to 12 instead of the regular 1.5 to 2.
The problem was traced to a power failure at the Anthony Henday water treatment plant near Innisfail, which provides Olds with its water and is operated by the MVRWSC.
Williams said that event caused sludge and sediment to shoot through a water line into Olds.
The commission provides water not only to Olds but also to Innisfail, Bowden, Didsbury, Carstairs and Crossfield.
Williams said those other communities weren’t affected because they are on a different water line than Olds.
He said another factor was that when the power outage occurred, an Olds reservoir was being filled, so water valves were open.
“We don’t have manual control of those valves so upon re-start of the line, valves being opened, all of that manganese discoloured water was entered into our reservoir before we even knew it happened,” Williams said.
He said the Town of Olds was not notified that the power failure had occurred.
Alberta Environment and AHS were notified about the problem as per protocol.
Also, Williams said, on-call utilities staff began flushing watery hydrants “at break-neck speed” with help from firefighters. In total, they flushed about 850,000 gallons of from water hydrants.
In response to the problem, AHS issued the boil water advisory.
Williams said that advisory was issued “under an abundance of caution, as we were still passing our chlorine levels and we had no concern that there was a break in the line.”
Williams said town staff did a “fantastic job” responding to the problem. He said by responding quickly to the turbidity issue, they kept it from spreading beyond about half the town.
In addition, he said staff communicated the problem to residents very well.
Williams said since the incident occurred, Alberta Environment has been investigating it.
“Obviously it happened, we can’t undo it,” he said. “The proper focus, once the cleanup is finished and we’re done with the investigation, we want to figure (it) out.
“We understand why it happened; we want to more so understand how we can prevent it from happening again. And that involves, obviously, a robust conversation with the commission and the municipal members that make up the commission.”
“Obviously this had a negative effect on people and businesses for three-plus days,” Wilson said.
“We’ve heard from many of them and there’s not a lot of great answers we can give them, outside of we’re sorry for the inconvenience and this happening and we hope to have an answer soon.”
