(Left to right) Carrot River MLA Fred Bradshaw, Nipawin Mayor Rennie Harper, and former Nipawin mayor David Trann cut the ribbon for the town's $21.9 million water treatment plant. (Aaron Schulze/northeastNOW Staff)

By Aaron Schulze

Nipawin Water Treatment Plant

Nipawin Water Treatment Plant fully operational

Sep 23, 2020 | 4:07 PM

A project nearly two decades in the making in the Town of Nipawin is running full stream ahead.

The town’s $21.9 million water treatment plant is fully operational after its three membrane units were commissioned. A ceremony was held in Nipawin on Sept. 23.

Nipawin Mayor Rennie Harper said the water treatment plant can serve an area of up to 10,000 people.

“How that looks in the future, that’s something for conversation. Even more reason to make sure you have lots of partnerships and stakeholders involved in conversations in the future,” Harper said.

Nipawin Mayor Rennie Harper cheers the water treatment plant’s milestone with a glass of water produced by the plant itself (Aaron Schulze/northeastNOW Staff).

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Following a fire that destroyed Newfield Seeds in Nipawin in 2002 – an incident that caused the town to nearly run out of water – the council and administration at the time realized they needed to double their water capacity.

Former Nipawin Mayor David Trann, who was on town council from 1997 to 2016, said administration notified council in 2005 that their current water plant was slowly deteriorating. After applying for numerous grants and not receiving any significant funding, Trann said the town had to start saving towards a new water plant on their own.

“The monthly (water) bill was $126 a month. That was a hard pill to swallow, but we had to do it, or else we’re in crisis,” Trann said. “We lobbied the provincial and federal governments. If any of those pieces went missing, we wouldn’t have got the funding. There were over 400 applications in this province under this [New Building Canada Fund] and they could have taken that piece of paper and put it at the bottom, but we lobbied and they listened. They knew we were committed to building it whether we had help or not.”

The Town of Nipawin got a call from former minister of public safety and emergency preparedness Ralph Goodale’s office in May 2016, notifying they received funding.

Both the provincial and federal governments contributed $6.8 million to the new water treatment plant, with the Town of Nipawin footing the rest of the bill.

Carrot River Valley MLA Fred Bradshaw said a new water treatment plant was a main talking point from Nipawin’s council since he was elected in 2007.

“It didn’t matter who was mayor or who was on council, the council always was backing this water treatment plant up, which was a good thing for the whole community,” Bradshaw said. “I think it’s going to be an ongoing problem within all of Canada; to be able to have safe, potable water. I had to talk to my government counterparts and do a little persuading as things went along over the years, but it’s just great to finally see it come to fruition.”

The pressure filters in place can operate 600 gallons of water per minute. (Aaron Schulze/northeastNOW Staff)

According to the project’s coordinator Brandi Neibrandt, the pressure filters in the water treatment plant are sized to operate 600 gallons of water a minute, but there’s room to install an additional eight filters for a maximum of 3,200 gallons. She added three new wells are expected to be completed by 2021 to improve the reliability of raw water.

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aaron.schulze@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @SchulzePANow