Mill says proposal would aid taxpayers

Derek Spalding
Daily News
Thursday, September 08, 2011

Owners of the Harmac pulp mill want to partner with the City of Nanaimo to work out a water-sharing agreement, which could postpone the need for a new dam and save money.

Representatives from Nanaimo Forest Products, owners of Harmac, have met with city staff and members of the Snuneymuxw First Nation to discuss the potential of sharing water from Harmac's dam at Fourth Lake.

Details of the talks have been left at the discussion tables with none of the parties wanting to disclose too much. Harmac president Levi Sampson said there could be "considerable savings" for taxpayers, but city staff remain cautious, knowing that a shared system would require significant work and may not be feasible. Nanaimo has two major water infrastructure projects planned within the next nine years, including the $65-million water-treatment plant and $75 million for a second South Forks Dam.

Connecting to the Harmac dam instead building a new one involves detailed planning and there are many of issues that could prevent it or make it too expensive.

"It's a pretty complex way forward if we were going to entertain it any further," said Bill Sims, manager of Nanaimo's water resources. "But it would be foolish on our part not to explore all the options."

The water-treatment plant will be online by 2015. This project was the city's solution to improving the water supply in order to meet Canadian drinking-water guidelines, which are enforced by the Vancouver Island Health Authority.

Talks with Harmac have so far focused on the plans for the second dam at South Fork Lake. The city's water strategy indicates that Nanaimo will need an additional 20 million cubic metres of water to meet the growing demand from a population that is expected to reach 100,000 by 2020. Even estimating the most optimistic water conservation practices, the city would still lack sufficient water supply at that time.

City council already directed staff to look for qualified engineers to come up with preliminary plans, which will include site selection, geotechnical exploration and a detailed environmental assessment.

But if the cost can be largely eliminated by working with Harmac, then that would be an attractive option.

"We just started to have discussions on the feasibility for all three parties," said Sampson.

"The only reason I can see for the groups coming together is there could be considerable savings to the taxpayer of Nanaimo."

Several problems will likely arise with the older Harmac dam. Licence regulations are much more strict today than they were 20 or 30 years ago. Any new licence on the Harmac dam would require many upgrades.

Environmental assessments could also impede any plans. Neither side would divulge many details about these difficulties, but both are optimistic that all stakeholders will agree on one solution, no matter what that option is.

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© The Daily News (Nanaimo) 2011