A sigh of relief for Prince Albert, Sask., as kinks in water supply pipelines have been ironed out.
City manager Jim Toye said as of Saturday night, water from the Little Red River pipeline is flowing to Prince Albert.
“Last night we started pumping water from the Little Red River. That was pumping all night to our water treatment plant and we did start putting that water through our plant,” Toye said.
READ MORE: Crews dig up breached Husky pipeline, but cause of oil spill still unknown
Prior to that, the city was relying on reservoirs and storm ponds, which were set to run empty on Tuesday.
The Little Red River line is the backup plan to the 30-kilometer pipeline bringing water from the South Saskatchewan River. Toye said barring any unforeseen trouble, the pipeline is scheduled to be up and fully operational by Sunday night.
“I just got off the phone with the president and he assured me that it would be done today so we’re looking forward to that. That will be our main source as we move forward,” Toye said Sunday afternoon.
Residents are asked to obey traffic signage and slow down over pipelines. On Saturday night, a speeding vehicle drove over a covered pipeline on Highway 302, damaging it.
Luckily, it was in the section of pipeline that wasn’t full of water yet or damages could have been much worse.
“There was no water at that particular time so obviously we have to protect that piece of infrastructure quite a bit more. It wasn’t charged, had it been charged there would be water all over,” Toye explained.
READ MORE: Prince Albert, Sask. to get new water supply after Husky oil spill
As for the clean up at the spill site, the Saskatchewan Ministry of Environment said 126,000 litres of oil have been recovered. That’s over half of the estimated spill amount.
Efforts have been slowed due to exposed sandbars in the North Saskatchewan River. A water surge from storms in Alberta has passed making it harder to clean using boats.
As of Sunday morning, seven kilometers of land around the spill site has been cleaned. That’s one kilometer more than Saturday. Crews hope to increase progress back to two kilometers a day.
WATCH BELOW: Coverage of the Husky Energy oil spill near Maidstone into the North Saskatchewan River