YOU ASKED: What were the results of the water drilling at McArthur Island? How much did it cost and was it of any use?
— Anonymous
OUR ANSWER: The issue of groundwater testing at McArthur Island was a very hot topic a decade ago when the City of Kamloops was looking for ways to increase the municipal water supply.
Mike Warren was a utilities engineer at the time and heavily involved in the drilling and installation of a well at McArthur Island in the spring of 2000.
“The idea was sound,” recalls Warren, now an engineering manager with the City.
“What we were looking for was 40 million litres (of water) a day, and we were able to get that, to pump it out.”
The only problem was the quality of the water.
It was drinkable, but tests found it was high in iron and manganese — two elements that are a nuisance in any water supply. They cause brown stains on sinks, tubs and clothes.
So, the City found itself in a quandary that summer.
“To get to that point, we’d spent approximately $2 million,” said Warren.
“It was too expensive to go any further with it — to have to produce clean enough water as opposed to getting it from the water plant, which we eventually built on River Street.”
There was also the issue of public opinion. Several decades earlier, the island was home to a landfill as well as sewage lagoons. The idea of drinking from well water was simply too much for some folks to stomach.
“Perception is a big thing,” said Warren.
“This was perceived to be not the same quality of water that would come from the River Street plant, even though I doubt whether anybody really could have told the difference once it was treated.”
Interestingly enough, it was public opinion that had forced the City to drill at McArthur Island because just a few years earlier taxpayers had said they weren’t willing to support a $50-million water treatment plant.
In the end, though, the public would eventually warm to the idea of the River Street facility, which opened in 2005.
As for the test well at McArthur Island, signs of it are still there.
If you walk around the perimeter of the golf course, you’ll see the occasional orange pipe sticking out of the ground. Those are the monitoring wells; there are about six of them.
In the southwest corner of the park is a circular, concrete structure.
“And that’s the well,” said Warren. “It was never completed. It never had any top put on it or any pump station built because it was basically abandoned.”
Could it be used eventually? That’s a tough question, says Warren.
“It’s been a long time. It may not be possible to rejuvenate it,” he added.
“If that ever came up, that would be something we’d have to take a look at.”
