More than three years since it was scheduled to be up and running, the Cove Bay Water Treatment Plant could be coming online within the next few weeks.
Director of engineering Patrick Graham provided an update on the project during council on Monday, offering the most optimistic timeline the plant has seen since its original commissioning in May 2021. “We should be on track to have the commissioning steps and all the testing that Vancouver Coastal Health requires before the end of the month,” said Graham.
Over the past three years numerous technical delays due to faulty equipment along with disagreements between the municipality and Purifics, the supplier of the purification equipment, have stalled the Water Treatment Plant (WTP) from coming online. New equipment arrived on Bowen last week, and Graham expects the chief technology officer from Purifics to be on-island next week for start-up and recommissioning of the facility.
From there the WTP could be online by Sept. 30; “Assuming that everything works the way it’s supposed to,” said Graham.
The extended delay was a main topic of discussion during a visit by Vancouver Coastal Health (VCH) to council earlier this year. The Cove Bay water system was failing many of the organization’s treatment standards, including turbidity (cloudiness) levels and cyst reduction.
“Many of these concerns would have been ameliorated or eliminated with the new filtration plant that was supposed to go into Cove Bay,” said VCH medical health officer Dr. Alex Choi in March of the oft-delayed facility.
But, with Bowen’s largest water system serving more than 650 properties finally on the verge of a working plant, both VCH and the municipality expect Cove Bay’s water issues to be cleared up once the WTP is brought online.
