Two distribution pumps at Weyburn’s water treatment facility depressurized Saturday, triggering a precautionary boil water advisory in the southern Saskatchewan city.
As of Monday afternoon, crews had received necessary parts to do the repairs on the aging infrastructure. The main pump is among those that failed. One of the pumps is expected to be repaired by the end of Monday. The second pump is expected to be back up and running Tuesday.
Mayor Marcel Roy said that water quality is being tested, and the results have been positive. However, in an event like this, a precautionary boil water advisory is mandated by the Water Security Agency (WSA).
“The water quality hasn’t dropped at all. That water quality standard is still there. It’s just that when there’s a depressurization within the system this automatically kicks in,” Roy said.
“Our crews are working 24 hours a day. So with that we should have everything back up and going, and hopefully the precautionary water advisory will be off by end of week.”
READ MORE: Boil water advisory in effect for Weyburn
Once the pumps are all operational again there will have to be 48 hours of tests before the WSA can lift the advisory. This means Thursday or Friday will be the most likely days it is lifted.
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At The Welsh Kitchen and Bakery, this means owner Vicki Leas will be changing up the daily routine for at least a few more days.
“It does make our job difficult. We get here 5 a.m. First job now is boil water rather than making bread,” Leas said. “This is our second time this year, so you kind of get used to it, which is not really a good thing, but I know the city’s trying as hard as they can.”
At the end of March, a major water main break triggered a boil water advisory for the entire city that lasted for a few days.
READ MORE: Weyburn water main break shuts down city
Leas said that customers have been understanding of the situation. Leas has even seen a slight uptick in sales because it’s harder to make coffee at home now.
Other residents, like Shirley Hubbs, are frustrated.
“Well its getting ridiculous. I thought they did a bunch of work on that place last year,” she said.
“I didn’t know about it until somebody phoned me and told me. If you don’t put the radio on how do you find out?”
That work was building a new, expanded reservoir to serve up to 20,000 customers. The current reservoir’s capacity is 9,000 customers and it currently serves around 14,000.
Once the new reservoir is ready to open next year, the current water treatment plant, along with the distribution pumps at the centre of the current advisory, will be decommissioned.
“We were playing a waiting game; didn’t want to spend the money on fixing this pump because it was working, and it was working effectively, and why pull it out and do the maintenance when in a few months we’re going to have new pumps going,” Roy said.
The new reservoir is receiving much of its funding through federal and provincial grants infrastructure grants. There is some leftover federal money that is set to go into replacing water and sewer lines along Government Road, between 1st Avenue and Railway Avenue. Roy said that work will be expected to start in mid-July.
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