WATER SYSTEM GRANT INFORMATION

*This is only a snippett, click link to read entire contents*

Conclusions found in the report:

"Based on the results of the current drilling program and information on the Faulder Community Well, it is apparent that the District of Summerland wells and the Faulder Community Well are completed in the same aquifer."

Recommendations found in the report:
"Further development of the aquifer should not be undertaken without more detailed hydrogeological studies."

"It is imperative that the current stakeholders of the aquifer monitor the existing groundwater consumption and development activities in order to limit potential overuse, or mining, of the groundwater resource in the area."

Clearly water is an issue. This is a 30 page report and a copy can be viewed or obtained by contacting me.

Amie

Residents of Summerland and Faulder will both reap the benefits out of a new agreement bringing water system improvements.

A memorandum of understanding between the two communities will see that Faulder residents will receive secure treated water at a price that is comparable to their current rates. Summerland residents will receive funding that will advance the split of their water system and create treated water capacity in excess of the additional water consumed by Faulder.

The Regional District of Okanagan Similkameen approved the revised memorandum of understanding for execution for the purpose of funding and supplying potable water to the Faulder community.

Public safety and other important municipal services will be getting a boost thanks to $38.6 million that the province is providing to 188 of B.C.’s local governments in the latest installment of the Strategic Community Investment Fund.

The Strategic Community Investment Fund is a restructuring of provincial grants, consisting of the Traffic Fine Revenue Sharing program and Small Community and Regional District grants.

“Communities have shown real leadership in the way they use Strategic Community Investment funds during these tough economic times,” said community and rural development minister Ben Stewart. The City of Vernon will receive $215,865 from traffic fine revenue sharing.

District of Coldstream will pick up a total of $131,971, with $106,894 coming from the small community grant, the rest from traffic fine revenue sharing.

City of Armstrong will receive $143,701 from the small community grant while the Township of Spallumcheen collects $142,433 from the same grant program.

The City of Enderby receives $126,037 and the Village of Lumby will receive $104,705 from small community grants.

District of Lake Country will get $130,329 from both programs, including $100,193 from the small community grant.

According to a press release from the ministry of community and rural development, this year’s funding will be used for more police officers, new police equipment such as imaging cameras, identification equipment and police vehicles, and a variety of community safety and crime prevention initiatives.

As well, the funding will be put to other local priorities such as new infrastructure, local planning, improvements to existing infrastructure and roadways, and local employment opportunities.

Government money keeps on pouring into the South Okanagan for new infrastructure projects, and the small community of Faulder is once again benefiting from the cash.

B.C.’s Towns For Tomorrow program will send $653,000 to the Regional District of Okanagan-Similkameen for projects including the Faulder Water Well project.

“Because of this generous donation, the cost of this project will decrease for Faulder residents,” said Penticton mayor and Regional District of Okanagan-Similkameen chair Dan Ashton.

The small community west of Summerland received good news two weeks ago, when it was announced it would receive $610,000 in funding from the provincial and federal governments to build a new water treatment facility. Faulder’s water was receiving attention due to trace elements of uranium found that were in excess of government standards. That $610,000 plus Wednesday’s announced $332,800, will go toward digging a new water well in Faulder — a necessary project after it had been discovered last year that the existing well was nearly dry — will almost entirely pay for Faulder’s water system upgrade. The project is estimated to cost more than $1 million. Taxpayers of the small community consisting of around 80 homes will pay for the remaining amount.

But because of overlapping grants that are only supposed to cover a certain percentage of the project’s entire cost — the first was under the Building Canada program, the second from Towns For Tomorrow — RDOS is unsure how much will be left on the bill for taxpayers, said engineering services manager Andrew Reeder.

“We will have that information pretty shortly. We were surprised we got the grant, we’re glad that we’ve got it, and really we need to now just find out what that exactly translates to dollars for the residents,” he said, adding RDOS will have exact costs within the next couple of weeks.

Also included in the $653,000 funding is $214,787 for the Small Community and Regional District Grant, part of a restructuring of provincial grant programs to give communities more money quickly.

The Towns For Tomorrow program is part of provincial government spending of $14-billion on infrastructure, with the goal of creating more jobs and improving communities in B.C.

Media Contact:

Lara Perzoff
Communications Manager
Ministry of Citizens’ Services
250 387-7482

Nearly 500 residents in Killiney Beach and Westshores Estates are receiving water meters thanks to a $345,000 grant under the federal Gas Tax Fund.

The Central Okanagan Regional district says these are the last of the regional district’s five water systems to receive meters––a measure designed to promote sustainable water use and efficiency.

“Fresh water is one of our most treasured natural resources and it should be well managed,” said Okanagan-Coquihalla MP and federal Treasury Board president Stockwell Day.

“Through the Gas Tax Fund, the Government of Canada is supporting the Central Okanagan Regional District in its efforts to improve water management to ensure the long-term sustainability of its communities.”

Regional district chairman Robert Hobson said the water meters would be an important tool for measuring demand for treated water.

“Based on the experience of other metered water systems, the regional district anticipates these new meters will provide an opportunity for individuals to reduce their water bills by better understanding their water use and taking steps to control their consumption,” said Hobson.

“The meters should also result in reduced repair costs by extending the life of existing equipment on the water systems.”

The Canadian government’s gas tax reimbursements are given to municipalities as part of a tripartite agreement between Canada, British Columbia and the Union of BC Municipalities, delivering infrastructure funding to local governments for capital projects that lead to cleaner air, cleaner water or reduced greenhouse gas emissions.

The UBCM administers the Gas Tax Fund in this province in collaboration with Infrastructure Canada and the B.C. government.

c) Valley of the Sun / Upper Fintry Water Service
Hilary Hettinga advised that an analysis was completed by Agua Consulting Inc. into the feasibility of providing domestic water and fire flows to Upper Fintry, Valley of the Sun, and the Kubas development property. (Lower Fintry and the Fintry Provincial Park are not included). Cost estimates were established at approx. $20,000 per lot. There are 600 – 800 lots, most of which are vacant and thus it is unlikely that grants could be obtained. Representatives of the areas were petitioned informally re. the estimated cost and they appeared optimistic. Staff will meet with the community to discuss further later in September.

BAKER/GIVEN
THAT the report be received.

CARRIED

The final round of stimulus funding under the Communities Adjustment Fund was announced for B.C. during a press conference at Mission Creek Regional Park in Kelowna on Friday.

Treasury Board president Stockwell Day and B.C. Community Development Minister Ben Stewart said B.C. would get its last $10 million under the fund for 45 projects around the province aimed at putting 432 laid-off forestry industry employees back to work, including 10 here in the Central Okanagan.

Local funding would go to the Central Okanagan Regional District, which will use the money to conduct forest fire fuel management work in regional parks.

Lake Country Mayor James Baker, vice chairman of the regional board, said the regional district was thankful for its share of the funding, which amounted to $162,233 from the federal government and $87,357 from the province. “We could use the whole $10 million in the Central Okanagan, but we’ll keep working on that,” said Baker.

The forest fire fuel mitigation work will be used to remove pine beetle-infested trees and heavy loads of pine needles and to prune and thin trees on public and regional parklands throughout the Central Okanagan, said Baker, “creating healthy forests so we don’t have such vicious interface fires as we have had recently.”

Baker also encouraged homeowners living in interface areas to pick up a copy of the province’s Fire Smart manual, available in all municipal offices, so they could determine what work they needed to do to protect their own properties.

Meanwhile, in announcing the funding Friday, Day made a point of saying this $10 million was part of the last $19 billion in stimulus funding the federal government had promised nearly two years ago to kick start the economy.

“(This funding) is providing employment in areas that have been especially hard hit by the downturn in the forest industry in B.C.,” said Day.

“It’s skills training, it provides training for people working in the forestry industries and also it’s funding to deal with the fuel problems…that cause forest fires.”

Day said that the Conservative government would be holding firm on its plan to end stimulus funding at the end of the 2010-11 fiscal year.

“Our plan is to recognize that too much debt creates too much problem.”

Province of British Columbia unveils web-based Water Conservation Calculator at CWWA National Conference in Victoria

Web Tool is in Beta Testing

Source: WaterBucket.ca

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http://waterconservationcalculator.ca/

The City of Vernon has landed a significant grant to assist with future growth.

The Okanagan Basin Water Board has provided the city with $118,234 a year for debt payments on a 25-year loan for construction of the sewer treatment plant. It also received a lump-sum award of $236,469 for payments for the two previous years.

OBWB grants help cover the costs of water treatment in older neighborhoods that were built before communities recouped such expenses with development cost charges.

“It is hard to believe now, but in the 1960s and ’70s, pollution from poorly-treated sewage was causing major algae blooms and fouling beaches,” said Anna Warwick Sears, OBWB’s executive director.

“The OBWB grants have given that extra incentive for communities to invest in water clean-up, and the results have been excellent.”

A $300,000 grant from the Okanagan Basin Water Board has failed to materialize, meaning West Kelowna will have to find other ways to fund its first water plan.

The plan was aimed at helping the municipality take stock of its delivery system.

The OBWB told the municipality it had more than $750,000 in grant requests for projects throughout the Okanagan this year and it didn’t have cash to cover all of them.

Mayor Doug Findlater, who sits on the water board, told council this week that projects typically funded have an innovative component or benefit conservation efforts in the entire valley. The local plan would be highly localized and more about assessing West Kelowna’s current and future infrastructure needs.

Engineering director Gary O’Rourke said council set aside $150,000 in the 2010 budget so the municipality’s water plan could be started later this year. But another $150,000 will need to be allocated in next year’s budget to complete the plan.

At incorporation 29 months ago, West Kelowna inherited three water systems from the regional district in Sunnyside/South Boucherie, Pritchard Drive and West Kelowna. The municipality will inherit two more, the Westbank and Lakeview Irrigation Districts, on Dec. 31, serving most of the remaining neighbourhoods in the municipality.

West Kelowna did receive a smaller grant of $22,500, however, which will be used to determine whether powdered limestone can control algae growth in the Rose Valley Reservoir and improve drinking water quality.

jluciw "at" kelownacapnews.com

For the fifth consecutive year, the Okanagan Basin Water Board was flooded with applications to its Water Conservation and Quality Improvement Grants Program.

“The interest in this program is phenomenal. It just grows each year,” commented water board grants administrator Genevieve Dunbar.

“There’s a real thirst for projects that address water protection today and into the future.”

With $300,000 available, 37 applications were submitted with requests totaling nearly $754,000.

The Okanagan Basin Water Board settled on 18 grant applications.

Projects include water source assessment and protection plans in Armstrong, Kelowna and Okanagan Falls; a program that will encourage low-water landscaping in the Okanagan; publication of a large-lot xeriscape manual; aquifer-vulnerability mapping by Regional District of Okanagan-Similkameen; a grey water recycling study by City of Kelowna; an irrigation strategy for Kelowna parks; watershed improvements in Joe Rich; bacterial source tracking in Kalamaka Lake; and an outreach and education program to support the valley-wide goose management effort.

“It’s so gratifying to be able to support fantastic and important projects in this valley that may otherwise have sat idle or taken longer to complete,” added Dunbar, pointing to a project by the Okanagan Collaborative Conservation Program as an example.

The conservation program is a coalition of environmental organizations and local governments.

Past funding from the water board allowed partners to videotape the shoreline along Okanagan Lake and gather data as part of its Foreshore Inventory Mapping Project.

New funding will allow the group to compile the data and video, and develop a listing of valuable and vulnerable habitat areas along the lakeshore.

Local governments will be able to use this information to direct foreshore development towards less sensitive areas, noted Dunbar.

“Since the grant program was introduced in 2005, we have seen improvements to water conservation in the Okanagan,” she said.

“There has also been an increase in water science, which allows for better decisions to be made. And, the grants have increased the number of best practices in place.”

Funding for the WCQI grants is split between the three Okanagan regional districts, based on their contributions to the program.