The British Columbia city of West Kelowna is reallocating $2.5 million from its budget to upgrade aeration and oxidation systems after struggling with increased algae, iron-related bacteria and manganese.
The upgrades are expected to improve source water in the Rose Valley reservoir following the brand new $75-million Rose Valley Water Treatment Plant coming online in early 2024.
Council has engaged AECOM Canada Ltd. for preliminary design work on aeration and potassium permanganate improvements.
Increased human–caused activity, climate change, and wildfire are impacting the watershed, says a new council report. In particular, impacts from the 2023 McDougall Creek wildfire exacerbated issues in the Rose Valley Reservoir, which led to increased turbidity and manganese concentrations.
Subscribe to our Newsletter!
The latest environmental engineering news direct to your inbox. You can unsubscribe at any time.
During summer 2024, the city began to field complaints from the public about the discoloration occurring from manganese in the water.
“It was a challenging summer for customers as they were provided discolored water at times, sent mixed messaging, and asked to flush their water lines repeatedly,” states a new engineering and operations report prepared for West Kelowna council.
By September the city’s water exceeded the aesthetic objective threshold for manganese and local officials began to increase dosages for chlorine. However, the practice of pre-chlorination resulted in a measurable increase of disinfection byproducts during the other annual samples collected during the operation of the new water treatment plant, according to the engineering report.
“Bringing online a water treatment plant of this magnitude can be challenging and take one to two years to improve and fine tune as part of the commissioning process,” states the engineering report.
