Delayed $14M Charlottetown project now up and running water

It took about nine months for Charlottetown'swell field in Miltonvale Park to be working at full capacity, but city officials say it's been pumping water since the end of January.

The $14 millionproject went online in April 2018, but problems delayed its operation.

"Since the end of January it has supplied all the water demand in our high-pressure network, which is what it was intended to do,' said Richard MacEwen, manager of the water and sewer utility for the city.

Up until then, only about sevenper cent of the city's water was coming from that well field.

But now it'sproducing about a third of the city's water pumped to higher elevation areas and the airport.

A number of issues

MacEwen said there were a number of issues that caused the delay including wrong parts being ordered, burned out motors andthe well field notautomatically comingback online after a power outage.

"Different software and hardware issues, we actually had some of the similar challenges that Georgetown had."

MacEwen said, unlike Georgetown, customers in Charlottetown wouldn't have noticed the system was down.

"Our customers didn't see any interruption in service because of the storage that is in our system."

1st summer

MacEwen said this will be the first summer thewell field will be able to take the pressure off the Winter River watershed, which is impacted in dry weather.

However, the delay at the well field caused delays in other projects. A government-funded study with lead researcher Mike van den Heuvel aimed at shaping P.E.I.'s water use rules is up to two years behind schedule because of ongoing problems that plagued the well field.

MacEwen said the evaluation to shape P.E.I.'s water use is ongoing.

"He is looking at the influence we have on stream flow and the aquatic life in the stream."

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