MOOSOMIN — Work at the new water treatment plant in Moosomin is nearing completion, but the wait for an important component means it won’t officially go online until January.
“We’re on schedule, but there’s one major piece of equipment that is delayed just due to supply chain issues which is the motor control cabinet,” explained project manager David Germin. P.Eng. at KGS Group. “We’ve had it on order since day one.”
The motor control cabinet is essentially the electrical component that everything connects to in the plant. While an integral part of the facility, Germin says there is other work ongoing at the site to ensure the project is not at a standstill.
“It’s not really a huge delay, because all the work around the thing can still continue, so all the wiring can be run to where it’s going to go, and all the piping can be installed to all the equipment, so they’re still working on all that stuff, and that’s all on schedule,” he said, adding that once the MCC does arrive, there will be a quick connect period, then everything can go online.
“We won’t be able to start pumping water until we get that piece,” said Mayor Larry Tomlinson. “Everything else has gone pretty smooth, and it’s pretty well underway and completed.”
It also gives time for the biological side of things to advance, another crucial part of the new plant.
“The biological filters that we have in this plant need time to seed,” Germin said. “The microorganisms that actually treat the water through them need time to grow in order to be effective at treating it. So that’s what we’re doing right now, too. That seeding process started about a month ago now, and it can take anywhere from two to three months.”
Overall, Germin is not worried about the delay caused by the wait for the MCC.
“Given that the piece of equipment was delayed, it really didn’t set us back all that much just because we were able to carry on with a lot of the rest of the work, which has been nice,” he said. “So overall, I think we’re maybe a little bit behind where we had initially intended, but not a whole lot. We’re still targeting kind of the end of January for going completely online with the new plant.”
Originally, the target was to have the new water treatment plant up and running in December.
“We were hoping before Christmas, but on a project this size, a month or two is relatively insignificant, especially since they have until 2027 to use the grant money,” Germain said.
Current plant aged out
Two main factors necessitated the construction of a new water treatment plant, being age and production volume.
“It was time for a new one, and plus with the growth of the town, we need more water,” Tomlinson said, adding that the typical lifespan of the current plant was 35 years. “We were having trouble with backwash through the sand, and we were losing sand, so it was time to do something.”
The $13.7 million project was cost-shared with the federal government funding $5,492,190 (through the Investing in Canada Infrastructure Program) plus a further $4,576,367 coming from the provincial government, leaving the Town of Moosomin responsible for $3,661,918.
“We waited about a year or so because we were paying on the hospital for 15 years,” explained Tomlinson. “The loan ran out on the hospital this past year, now where that left off, the payment for the water treatment plant will take over. One loan will offset the other without affecting the whole town.”
The new plant will be capable of handling not only the needs of current residents but also allowing for future growth.
“The way it is right now, it can accommodate growth of up to 4,600 people, but we can raise it higher by putting extra storage in,” Tomlinson said. “We could go to 5,000 people fairly easy with extra storage, but we’ve got a ways to go to get to that, too.”
The road to a new water treatment plant stretches back nearly 10 years, with the town initiating plans back in 2016 and applying for ICIP funding in 2020. Moosomin is not alone in updating its water treatment plant. Several communities are also currently in the midst of the same process, hence the queue for the MCC unit.
“There are lots of small towns that have been limping along on an existing plant on for a long time, and with regulations changing, the Water Security Agency’s probably been on many of them for some time to do an upgrade,” Germin said. “For a small community, it’s sometimes tough to do. You only got a couple hundred people in some of these small towns, and then you’re faced with sometimes a million-dollar bill. It can be very difficult to handle unless you get some assistance from the grant money, which only goes so far.”
In Moosomin’s case, the financial side of the project is not an issue, and the delay is not anticipated to change the budget in place.
“It’s pretty much on budget, which is nice because a lot of projects usually go quite a bit over,” Germain confirmed. “I think there is enough flexibility built into this grant that there hasn’t really been any cost overruns yet. All in all this project is in pretty good shape, budget-wise.”
