The District of 100 Mile House awarded a $3,188,540 contract to Bree Contracting Ltd. for the Exter Water System Upgrade project during their council meeting on March 14.
The district received four submissions for the project, however one withdrew due to an error in their submission. Locally-based Bree Contracting put forth the winning bid.
The firm will be constructing the new water treatment plant, preparing the site for the new reservoir and doing all the associated piping and water works required to get the water from the new wells up to the reservoir.
The contract will represent the major portion of the ongoing upgrades to update 100 Mile House’s water supply.
Currently, the bulk of 100 Mile House’s water is taken from Bridge Creek. Because of environmental concerns, that supply is not predictable.
Until now, the work has included drilling two new wells: wells five and six, as well as 95 per cent of the design process.
With the new wells, 100 Mile House should achieve 100 per cent redundancy, says Phil Strain, the director of operations with the district. That means if one well should go down, the other two would still be able to achieve the maximum daily flows.
Strain says that because of the current weather, he expects to see shovels in the ground by the start of May. The district still needs to meet with Bree before the project moves forward.
Strain also says he expects the reservoir and water treatment plant should be completed by the end of the year, and the entire project should be completed by mid-2018.
“Our whole tendering process went very well,” says Phil Strain. “We got some good prices and it’s going to move forward, it will go smoothly and 100 Mile will have a sustainable water system for many years to come.”
