Thompson city council unanimously approved the early purchase of three air comprerssors for the water treatment plant at their Dec. 9 meeting.
One of the compressors currently in the plant is not operational and a second one is starting to wear out, said city public works director Neil MacLaine. If the compressors, which provide pneumatic air to 92 valves in the plant, don’t perform properly and the valves are stuck in either the open or closed position, it will cause high turbidity issues in the water treatment plant and could lead to a boil water advisory for the city of Thompson.
Purchase of replacements for the three compressors, which are 25 to 30 years old, at a cost of $70,000 was already approved by council for the 2020 budget.
“They desperately need to be upgraded and now replaced,” said MacLaine. “I believe that this is a need now as opposed to a need later type of situation.”
“We already approved this as a capital project for 2020,” said Coun. Kathy Valentino. “The recommendation is coming forward to get the tender out early because of the immediate need for it.”
“I’m glad that you’re getting them ahead of time instead of waiting for the new budget,” said Coun. Brian Lundmark. “That’s my life is water plants so I know what happens when valves don’t open and it would be guaranteed there’d be a boil water advisory.”
Two councillors said there was no choice but to buy the compressors though they were not happy with the condition the water treatment plant was in when Vale handed it over to the city’s control.
“I really believe that at the upcoming meeting with Vale we need to be very clear that their equipment is 25, 30 years old and should’ve been replaced before we took over that facility and that’s really disappointing to me, madam mayor, that that did not take place and there’s other things in there that’s failing as well that we’re going to have to deal with.," said deputy mayor Les Ellsworth.
“The water treatment plant, we don’t have our own engineer to study the building, what we need,” said Coun. Duncan Wong. “We just based on Vale engineer report. That is a problem to me at that time. Now all these problems rise and come and haunt us now. It just shows we lacked due diligence when we took over such a big project and the property from a company.”
Coun. Jeff Fountain asked if any cost overruns beyond the approved $70,000 could be brought back to council for approval if they arose.
“That’s standard procedure that if anything is beyond what is allowed by resolution that it would have to come back for another resolution to go forward,” said city manager Anthony McInnis.
Prior to council voting on the resolution, former councillor Ron Matechuk asked during the general inquiries portion of the meeting about whether the compressors were rotary screw or piston compressors and the volume the water treatment plant uses.
Mayor Colleen Smook said council and administration didn’t have the answers to Matechuk’s questions on hand but that they can get them and provide them to him.
