By Geoff Smith

City could be hooked up to town water Tuesday

Jul 30, 2016 | 12:37 PM

Water could be flowing from the Town of Battleford to supplement the limited supply in North Battleford as soon as Tuesday, Aug. 2.

Sam Ferris, an official with the Water Security Agency, said work is underway to build a pipeline to carry treated water from Battleford’s municipal system to North Battleford’s idle F.E. Holliday Water Treatment Plant. The city has been relying on its groundwater treatment plant for the past week, after crude oil leaked from a Husky Energy pipeline into the North Saskatchewan River.

“North Battleford reservoirs continue to remain in generally good condition,” Ferris said during a briefing Saturday, July 30. “Conservation will still be required until such time as a full and adequate alternate supply to supplement the current products of the groundwater plant is in place.”

Crews are installing a six-inch line to tap into Battleford’s water system. The town’s excess capacity will only provide 20 per cent of the normal output of the F.E. Holliday plant, and won’t function during the winter. Additional water sources, such as more wells, are still being looked at.

Duane McKay, the province’s commissioner of emergency management, praised the cooperation between the city and town, adding he didn’t anticipate any challenges in maintaining a water supply to North Battleford. Speaking from Prince Albert, where he has been getting a firsthand look at the response to the interruption of that city’s main water supply, he also said he was impressed by the leadership, coordination, and work being done at the local level in all of the affected communities along the river.

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“Because of the strong leadership that we’ve seen in North Battleford, Prince Albert and Muskoday First Nation I would say that the situation here is stable. We have, I think avoided what I would say is disastrous consequences,” McKay said, but cautioned that there is “a ways to go.”

Crews excavating at the scene of the leak, on the riverbank northwest of Maidstone, found the source of the leak between two and three metres beneath the surface Friday. Laurie Pushor, deputy minister of the Economy, said there are two pipelines – one 16 inches in diameter which carries crude oil north to south, and an eight-inch line carrying diluent north. The failure was found in the crude line, three to four metres from where the oil reached the surface. Pushor explained oil travelled within the lining of the pipeline, before escaping to the surface.

He said crews are working on containment vessels so that no more crude is released while work goes on at the site, which includes purging any remaining oil and then removing the damaged section.

Wes Kotyk, an official with the ministry of Environment, said the preliminary cleanup is happening at a pace of about two kilometres per day, with about six kilometres done so far. He said an early survey shows the level of contamination on the shore decreases, and is visibly less past the Highway 21 bridge.

Thirty-three animals are confirmed dead as a result of the oil leak.

Geoff Smith is battlefordsNOW’s News Director, business and agriculture reporter. He can be reached at gsmith@jpbg.ca or tweet him @smithco.