SUNDRE – The municipality has decided to include an additional layer of redundancy to the town’s water supply in order to ensure sustained pressures for users in the event existing equipment is either taken offline for maintenance or suffers an outage.
Chris Albert, director of corporate services presented the “priority 1 request” to council recently, saying the vertical in-line pump and motor would serve as an additional backup.
“Currently, we do have two pumps in place,” Albert said.
However, he added that despite a level of redundancy already being in place, there has been a potential risk flagged in the event either of the two existing pumps should go down – regardless of whether the reason was for regular upkeep or an emergent issue – that should leave the municipality with only one functioning pump.
“We do have redundancy, but the single pump would not be enough to meet our daily water usage,” he told council, adding the item was brought forward by the town’s water department.
That all being said, Albert also wanted to note that “we have not had an incident as of yet; this is a precautionary priority 1.”
Background information provided to council noted the municipality’s raw water intake system is operated through the use of two pumps with the capacity to install a third, which will enable staff to remove one of the existing motors or pumps for servicing without restricting inflows to the water treatment facility.
But in the absence of a third pump and motor and in the event one of the two in operation should be taken out of service, the municipality would no longer be able to pump enough raw water to the treatment plant for the average daily demand.
A quote of nearly $12,300 including GST was received earlier in April, although that estimate did not include the cost of installation.
“We need to make sure this is addressed and installed as soon as possible,” said mayor Richard Warnock, who spoke in favour of the recommended motion.
Council agreed to proceed with purchasing the equipment and to include the cost of installation at the discretion of the chief administrative officer, with the final invoicing and funding information to be provided once complete.
