Clearwater water reserves drained within an hour of power outage
The District of Clearwater's water reserves dropped from 80 per cent full to a completely drained system shortly after a planned BC Hydro power outage began at 7 a.m. on Sunday, Oct. 6. The outage was scheduled to last for 12 hours, until 7 p.m. on Sunday.
"A coincidental incident" is how Clearwater mayor Merlin Blackwell described the situation to Black Press.
"Sometime after 9 p.m. on Saturday night [Oct. 5] something happened with the system and pressure dropped about 15 per cent and maintained at that, which would be approximately 84 per cent. The alarms don't trigger until the reservoir hits 80 per cent and drops below that, so no alarms went off in the system.
"When the power was shut off [on Oct. 6] and our pumps were shut off because of the power outage, the system dropped rapidly and we lost everything in the reservoirs, basically, within about an hour. Then the alarms went off."
Because there was no power immediately after the reservoir system alarms went off, District of Clearwater crews are tracing "every possibility," with staff cruising the area looking for any potential line break sites.
"t would have to be a major line break to lose that much water that quickly," says Blackwell. "We didn't lose that much water in over eight hours from use during the last recent power outage. Something substantial has happened, and at this point nothing has been determined, which is why we are continuing to trace the problem.
"We will be on a boil water advisory when we come back into power this evening, and it will probably take overnight, when the pumps come back on, before they can refill the reservoir again."
When asked about the long-awaited new back-up generators being installed, which was announced by the district last week, Blackwell explains that while the new generators are working on their own, they don't work hooked up to the pumps yet.
"BC Hydro ran into a very tight timeline prior to the planned outage today. BC Hydro has to inspect anything that impacts their power systems. We were so close to having the back-up generators ready to go. The stars just didn't align to have them ready for this outage. "
In anticipation of the planned outage the district issued advisories well ahead of time, asking residents to conserve water through practical planning such as filling bathtubs and containers and limiting water usage prior to the "no power" day. This was done to avoid the system being drained below acceptable levels, which caused the last boil water advisory in August, when the reservoirs were drained due to over-use.
"A lot of people followed the pre-planning advice, but this is something well and truly beyond that," says Blackwell. "With normal usage we should have still been able to keep water in the system for eight or 10 hours, and we lost everything out of the reservoir basically in under two hours.
"This is something else, and now we are troubleshooting. This much water should come to surface somewhere. Since we've lost all of the water in the reservoir it may not show itself until we can go back to full pressure once the generators come back online."
The mayor indicated that crews may not be able to find the "leak" for a day or two, adding that crews are walking and driving water line locations looking for signs of pooling. He is urging residents to conserve water as much as possible as crews continue to work diligently to find the reason for the sudden water loss.
