Politicians cut the ribbon on a $50-million expansion of Kingston’s Point Pleasant water treatment plant on Friday morning.
Construction began four years back, but the need to expand the plant’s capacity was identified a decade ago in the city’s water master plan study.
Utilities Kingston’s CEO Jim Keech says the plant’s capacity has almost doubled.
“It went from 45 million litres a day up to 80 million litres a day,” Keech said.
The facility has a number of built-in systems so that if there is a breakdown in one area, backups are in place to keep water flowing into homes.
New efficiencies will also provide long-term savings.
The plant now uses one pump to move treated water into the community and adjusts the flow to match demand.
Phil Emon, the municipally owned utility company’s supervisor of water, says previously different sized pumps had to be used to adjust water outflows.
“There’s an energy savings component to that as well,” Emon said. “One of the biggest draws on your energy is starting and stopping these big pumps. If that pump’s already started and running, then you’re not going to have those big energy spikes.”
The upgrades and expansion are expected to meet the needs of the city for approximately the next 20 years.
Keech says they city is ready for the next plant expansion when the need arrives.
“We had to buy additional land for the plant — just things you do as you build it … with the idea you can add on,” he said.
Along with serving residential growth, Mayor Bryan Paterson says the expansion is necessary to attract business.
“Frulact and Feihe … are new production plants that require a lot of water treatment and so being able to have that capacity was a key thing that we were able to put on the table in our discussions with those companies,” he noted.
The expansion was paid for by the city without assistance from senior levels of government.
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