The VPID Board and staff met this afternoon to discuss our next steps in our ongoing water emergency. After the water pressure was fully restored to the district, we determined that 7,900 gallons of water had left the treatment plant, leaving us with roughly 10,000 gallons of storage not including any water that was pumped in from our wells during that time. Ian Cocker was off-island today, but when he returns this evening, he will assess storage again. Depending on what he learns, we have decided to do one of two things:
- If he believes we have sufficient storage to get us through the night we will begin a daily procedure of shutting off water to part of the water district, starting at 10 am and continuing until late afternoon. Tomorrow, we will shut off water to Dalton Drive, Dinner Bay Road, Lundy Lane and Leighton Lane. On Thursday we will do the same, except this time for Spinnaker Drive, Mariners west of Dinner Bay Road, and Callaghan.
- If he DOES NOT believe we have sufficient storage to get us through the night, we will turn off the water to the entire district later this evening, and re-assess storage in the morning. If we are satisfied with storage in the morning, we will proceed with the above plan to implement daily, partial district shut-offs.
We have decided to follow this strategy with the goal of building up storage over the next several days. We are in “uncharted territory” for VPID, and these partial shut-offs are an opportunity to learn. They also represent our best judgment of the trade-off between increasing storage and maintain your access to water. The Board will re-assess the situation on Friday and update you then.
We have had several enquiries about trucked-in water. Two weeks ago we asked South Island water, the only supplier of trucked water to Mayne, about deliveries this week, in addition to the deliveries we received last week. We were told they were fully booked. We have two deliveries scheduled for August 11 and 12.
The Trustees recognize that the challenges we have experienced this summer, as well as last summer, raise important questions about our future in VPID. We all agree that we will need to devote time this fall to strategically address several issues, including better leak detection methods, increasing our storage, installing household meters, alternative sources of water, and replacing older infrastructure. We are committed to seeking your input on all of these topics.
Right now, our focus is on getting to the end of the high-use summer season with as little further disruption of your water supply as possible. We genuinely appreciate the expressions of support you have offered in response to these messages, and also respect your right to question how we are handling things, especially by offering constructive input.
To find out whether water will be shut off this evening, or not until tomorrow morning, please check our web site (vpid.ca) after 9 pm tonight.