The city will be taking advantage of work being done on an uptown residential project to make some headway on desired infrastructure.
Salmon Arm council has awarded local company D. Webb Contracting Ltd. the contract to extend a water main from 28th Street NE along a portion of 8th Avenue NE by the Salmon Arm Curling Club. To fund this project, council also approved a financial plan amendment to use $55,000 from the delayed 20th Avenue NE at Lakeshore water main upgrade project.
The project was spurred by development of a six-storey residential/commercial building at 811 28th Street NE. City engineering manager Jennifer Wilson explained that during the development approval process, the engineering department determined the city would benefit from the looping of the water main from 28th, along 8th to west side of Rogers Rink where it could be tied into where another branch of water main currently ends.
"The looping of the water main is best practice to provide redundancy in the system, eliminate single feed lines and improve flows," said Wilson.
The city opted to go with D. Webb as the company selected by the developer via tendering process.
"Pricing for the city project can be included under the competitively obtained unit pricing for the contract," said Wilson.
The city project would begin the looping process, taking the main from 28th to the southwest end of the development property where a fire hydrant will be installed.
Asked to explain more about the looping, Wilson said it involves having the main connected between two locations "so you never have a single feed water main."
"Best practice is if there’s a break in the water main, you can isolate that break and everything is still serviced around it, and… it allows better service pressure flows through the system and better redundancy…," said Wilson. "The other thing that is if there’s a single feed water main and enough water isn’t being used it can get stagnant, so the chlorine residual can drop off, so you want to make sure that your water is moving around in your system and constantly getting mixed up."
Coun. Kevin Flynn said it made sense to "piggyback on the works being done by the developer."
Wilson said beginning the loop allows the city to work on the remainder of it in the future.
