Yellowknife’s new water treatment plant opened its doors to visitors for the first time on Monday.
The facility cost a fraction over $30 million to build and began operations this summer, just in time to end a weeks-long boil-water advisory across the city.
Such advisories should be a thing of the past as the new facility boasts an advanced water filtration system.
Moose FM took this photo tour with city staff.
Superintendent Scott Gillard and director of public works Chris Greencorn gave Moose FM a tour.The facility can handle 20 million litres of water per day, and could support more than 30,000 people.At the heart of the facility are new water filters, or membranes, which do a much better job of cleaning the city’s water than was previously the case.Scott Gillard holds up an example of the new water filtration system.Water passes through this filter, which helps to remove particles as tiny as one micron (one thousandth of a millimetre).Gillard believes the new filtration system makes boil-water advisories a thing of the past.These tanks contain sodium hypochlorite. This chemical replaces chlorine in the water cleaning process and is said to be a safer solution.The facility employs three staff and costs around $1.3 million to run each year. Testing of the water supply can be performed on-site.This instrument tests for turbidity, or how much silt and debris is in the water. (When Moose FM toured the facility, turbidity was at around 0.012 NTU. For context, the 2003 boil-water advisory in Yellowknife saw turbidity approach 50 NTU.)These screens are part of the small control centre in one corner of the building, from which operators can inspect the entire system.The next question for Yellowknife is where its water comes from. This is the view from the facility, looking out over Yellowknife Bay. The city could decide to draw water directly from the bay when its old pipe to Yellowknife River comes up for replacement, in the near future.If the city decides to pump water from Yellowknife Bay, contamination from the toxic remnants of nearby Giant Mine will be a concern. This bland corridor could form part of a new arsenic treatment installation if the city decides to go ahead with it.
Environmental scientists with the territory’s Environment and Climate Change department said that ice break-up along the Peel River is “near complete.” Data collected as of this morning showed that ice break up continues along the Mackenzie Delta, with water levels "above average" in Aklavik.
The territorial government and the Northwest Territories Fire Chiefs Association have just unveiled a new program that formally integrates N.W.T. wildfire and community emergency response. While the Wildland Urban Interface program is aimed at responding to a need for “stronger integration” between wildland and structural firefighting during wildfire threats, some responsibilities remain delegated to the municipal level.
It will be “several” more days before more is known about a reported leak at the Taltson Station’s surge tank. South Slave hydro customers were transfered to diesel fuel this weekend as N.W.T.’s Power Corporation inspects the Talston surge tank, after some water was observed leaking from the tank.
The Government of the Northwest Territories is notifying users of the Canvas learning management platform of a security incident involving Canvas’ parent company, Instructure.
The Northwest Territories Power Corporation is warning residents of Inuvik that during planned work on the local power plant the community may experience short intermittent power outages.
