North Battleford, Sask., city council has approved new options for supplying the city with water following an oil spill on the North Saskatchewan River.
At a special meeting on Tuesday, council approved the construction of a pipeline from Battleford to the F.E. Holliday water treatment plant.
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Last week, the city entered into an agreement with Battleford for the town to supply water to the city, with North Battleford paying based on consumed meterage.
Construction of the pipeline started last Friday and was expected to be finished on Tuesday.
Testing still needs to be conducted before the water is distributed to the city.
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Council also approved drilling four new wells for water treatment plant 1 and to add new filtration systems at the F.E. Holliday water treatment plant to filter for hydrocarbons and other contaminants.
The new wells will be drilled and in place by the end of August while the new filtration system, which will pre-treat water before it enters the treatment plant, is expected to be operational by October.
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Until then, water restrictions will remain in place until all three water supply options are operational, however some may be partially lifted before then.
Once working, the three systems are each expected to replace a third of the water that has been lost by the city shutting off the water intakes in the North Saskatchewan River due to the Husky oil spill upstream near Maidstone.
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North Battleford was forced to shut off one of its water treatment plants and impose water restrictions on July 22 when up to 250,000 litres of oil from a Husky pipeline leaked into the river almost two weeks ago.
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