In need of rehahilitation North Vancouver reservoir suffering from seepage, bacteria concerns Andrew McCredie Editor andrew@nsnews.com THE Capilano watershed is the Mainland’s water supply. The most westerly of the three watersheds that service Vancouver-area residents accounts for 40% of the Lower Mainland’s drinking water. Bur the Capilano Watershed is also a tired horse in need of refreshing. Probiems facing the Capilano Lake water supply system include a water scep- age in the cast abutment of the Cleveland Dam and concerns over the amount of protozoan parasites Giardia and Cryptosporidium in the water. The seepage problema at the base of the 44-year-old Cleveland Dam, ifleft unchecked, could result in downstream flooding. Greater Vancouver Regional District engineers have decided to solve the seepage problem by laying 2 five-metre thick “blk:nker” of clay or concrete over the arca of seepage. Cost estimates for the construction groject fall between $20 million and $25 million. According to the GVRD's Frank Huber, the project will begin: later next year. “Right now we're hoping to award the detailed design process in August of 1999,” Huber said. The engineer said the work should tal depending on if North Vancouver District Council relay noise bylaws.” The job of constructing the “blanket” will involve hundreds of dump truck sorties up and down Capilano Road, and according to Huber, “if we can work through the night it will be closer to nvo years.” Another challenge facing the construction crew ts the fact they can only work on the project during the winter months. Due to the nature of the job, the Capilano watershed must be. closed during the construction phase. Huber reports that the Seymour and Coquitlam watersheds will pick up the slack, but duc to the increased water usage in the summer, it would be impossible to shut off the Capilano supply during that time. “In the past .., we've had turbidity events at Capilano that made us close it down,” Huber said. “It’s not a problem in the winter months to close it, but we still need it in the summer.” : The parasite problem is a litle more complicated — and expensive. A 12-month study of parasites in all three Lower Mainland watersheds by the B.C. Centre for Disease Control found that “Giardia cysts were present often (about half the time) in water filters analyzed fron the Capilano water- shed, occasionally (about one third of the time) from the Seymour watershed and rarely from the Coquitlam watershed.” Giardia is a waterborne pathogen found in unfiltered surface water. Following an outbreak of Giardiasis in B.C. and Washington state in the late 1980s, the GVRD has monitored all three Lower Mainiand watersheds for the parasite. The parasite Cryprosporidinm is also of concern, but the recent study found that it occurs less frequently than Giardia. In 1996 an outbreak of Cryptosporidiosis occurred in Cranbrook and Kelowna. “Our current chlorination levels aren’t up to the job (of rackling the par- asites),” said GVRD water treatment administrator Doug Neden. “We were in fact going to go with higher levels of chlorinization but since the public became interested in ozonation a few years ago it was concluded that for a bit more money, ozonation was the way to go.” A GVRD paper released last month sets the cost for new ozone primary - disinfection facilities in the Capilano and Coquitlam watersheds at $140 mil- lion with a completion date of 2001. » “We’re hoping to start clearing at Capilano next summer, and then in the fall begin the main construction,” Huber said. The facility will be built north of the existing Capilano River Regional Park parking lot. - Other new structures planned for the Capikino watershed include a cor- rosion control facility, a new pumping station, a new power substation and an upgrade of the existing chlorination plane. The big ticket item for the Capilano watershed is a $250 million filtration plant, Its first year of operation is scheduled to be 2015. yorkhorse of the Lower ¢ berween two and four years, $ their nighttime NEWS photo Terry Peters THE North Shore is blessed with an abundant supply of fresh water. However, that liquid resource, already in high demand, will be of even greater impor- tance and value come the new millennium. t a. s 1 THE tranquil beauty of Capilano Lake belies the fact that the water Sunday, May 17, 1998 — North Shore News - 3 aa . : NEWS phote Mike Wakefield :. ed area is the main suppli- er of the Lower Mainiand’s fresh water supply, accounting for 40% of the total water taken from . the three Vancouver-area watershed systems. Clean water wi Andrew McCredie Editor andrew@nsnews.com AN always popular premise for futurist fic- tion writers is a world without clean, safe drinking water. Indeed, the plot of one of the the most expensive Hollywood movies ever made, Waterworld, was based or: just this apocalyptic notion. While such a world may today just exist in writer’s imaginative flights of fancy, the fact is that in the next millenr’ - um fresh water will become the most sought after resource in the world. In some parts of the worid, clean water is ady mor ive than oil. iti a we're sitting ona mother lode. A report by Multinational Water & ‘ower Inc., a company that proposed in 1992 shipping Fraser River water to California, states that the watersheds of British Columbia “comprise appro mately one million square kilomecres and account for about 2% of the entire world's annual runoff.” (Canada has owo- thirds of the world’s fresh water). Pur another way, 500 billion gallons of B.C. water flows into the ocean every day. Even wi is seemingly abundant source, the fresh water supply for the Lower Mainland is of great concern to the keepers of the tap — the Greater Vancouver Regional District (GVRD). Well aware. of the ever-increasing | cost demands on the water system — in terms of both con- sumption and infrastrucrure — the GVRD embarked on a massive public consultation process in 1994. Over 5,000 people participated in the ‘year-long campaign through incetings, surveys, a speakers’ program and a televised forum. The &ndings confirmed what GVRD officials already suspected: a large and expensive upgrading of all three Lower Mainland watersheds is essential over the next 20 years. Phase One of the GVRD’s plan involves construction of new water treatment facilities at the Capilano, Seymour and Coquitlam watersheds (see story this page). ssigned to improve the qualiry of our drinking water, Phase One will cost $285 million and will rake place aver the next seven years, The total cost of the upgrades is nearly $1 billion. ds thar even with the hig Lower Mainland residents will have less expensive water than many of their big ciry counterparts. Another idea being bandied around in the GVRD* Burnaby-based office is installing water meters in homes so that users would pay for the direct amount consumed. i is possible to use such metering, but carly studies ha found the cost of installing meters in home: hibitive. It would cost $250 for a meter ins and $400 for one outsid GVRD studies indicate that meters could reduce water consumption in the Lower Mainland by, 20%. Considering that the Vancouver-area is one of the few regions in North America without water meters, it is li ly the new millennium will bring some form of water metering to Lower Mainland homes.