INSIDE

Board seeks public input

By Meg Olson

After several months of struggling to devise a fair and legally defensible method for handing out the 162 additional water connections allowed by state health authorities, local water commissioners are inviting the public to bring their ideas to the table.

On May 9 water district attorney John Milne will moderate a public meeting to gather input on the allocation method for the limited number of connections that will be available when the current moratorium is lifted and until additional water supply is secured.

At the April 13 regular district meeting a memo from Randy Forsyth of Stanton Properties offered a possibility for greater system capacity.
Forsyth is proposing that Stanton and the local golf course development team up to purchase land and build another 1.5 million gallon steel storage tank for the water district. “As I understand it, a facility of this size would provide capacity for 14 days of full water supply to 250 connections for use during peak water consumption times,” he wrote. The trade-off would be 203 certificates of water availability for the two developments, conditional on their funding and providing the land for the new facility, “thereby removing a majority of pressure on the current allotment of connections,” Forsyth wrote. “The board could then look at a faster resolution to the moratorium on the remaining existing allotment of connections.”

The rationale for the proposal is that on most days the local water district pays for more water than the community uses. The connection limit from the state is based in part on the district’s ability to serve peak demand. More storage would mean more water could be available during peak periods, pumped into the tank during periods of low demand.

The additional storage would allow that water to be used when it was needed and so the district could serve more connections.
Commissioners gave their approval for the developers to pay for five hours of Milne’s time to look into the proposal. “It sounds like a win-win thing,” said commissioner Madeleine Anderson.

At the annual voters association meeting April 19 Anderson said the district’s ultimate responsibility was to make sure the right combination of supply and storage was in place to serve the maximum number of connections that could be needed under current zoning. “The bottom line is that we have to secure more source,” Anderson said. “If there isn’t another source we’re stuck with another moratorium.”

In addition to trying to put some wells into service Anderson said they would be working on getting a new contract from the Greater Vancouver Regional District with a higher daily limit. “The original contract was drafted in ’81 and signed in ’87,” she said. “I’m a little more optimistic here.”