Conservation may extend life of water treatment plant
Until I was elected to City Council I rather took for granted the infrastructure services that we enjoy in Sandpoint. I had no idea how expensive water treatment plants and processes are. What I have learned is that we spend a whole lot of money to treat our water so that it is safe and tastes good.
What I also have learned is that the lion’s share of the water we treat is used for watering our yards and gardens — that’s some expensive grass. If we continue using at our current rates each and every year (especially summers) we are going to outgrow our capacity to effectively treat the water we are using.
That means expanding our water treatment facilities and/or building new ones. Are you ready for a $17,000,000 bill? I’m certainly not. The means to pay for this kind of infrastructure improvement comes from us — the city and non-city users of the service.
What are our options to this kind of expensive solution? We look all around us and see water — quantity isn’t the issue. Treatment costs are the issue and specifically treating water that we don’t consume in our bodies.
In our most recent city water bills, you may have noticed a newsletter outlining some ways we can voluntarily conserve on our summer time use of water. Summer (specifically mid-August to mid-September) is our highest demand time of the year. We kick into gear the lake treatment facility because our Sand Creek facility can’t process enough water for all of our demands (those tourists and the weather are the culprits here.)
I urge each and every one of you to follow these suggestions to the best of your ability and come up with other solutions that work for your family to reduce consumption.
Another leg of the stool is redesigning our delivery system. Our park system is going to a non-potable system of irrigation. That means they are not using treated, i.e. expensive, water to keep our parks looking nice. I and other council members have asked that we start thinking about developing secondary water delivery systems that will be available for irrigation and don’t require treatment. Retrofitting the existing customers probably isn’t likely, but for new expansion of the delivery system we should consider this option — or so I think.
The council continues to refine the draft comprehensive plan and work on the upcoming city budget. Our meeting days and times are listed on the city Web site.
Please contact me with any questions about the subjects I’ve talked about today or any others that may be of concern to you.
? Carrie Logan is a member of the Sandpoint City Council and can be reached at carrielogan@mval.net.