It turns out there isn’t as much water in Lantzville as once thought.
A well water capacity test conducted in late August by the District of Lantzville and Lowen Hydrogeology Consulting indicates that the district’s well field yielded a maximum capacity of 2,380 cubic metres of water per day, according to a report to Lantzville councillors.
Previous well field tests conducted earlier this year by Lowen showed that the wells could produce 3,104 cubic metres per day.
“When we did the testing we basically took [the wells] down as far as we could, turned the variable frequency drives to where it would be the most efficient and the most amount of water coming out of the system and that is the final number that we came up with,” Fred Spears, the district’s director of public works told councillors during a meeting on Monday.
Spears said the well field actually pumped more water than what was mentioned in the report. He said the 2,380 cubic metres of water per day figure includes a 30 per cent safety factor that is required by the provincial government.
Coun. Denise Haime expressed concerns about the latest well results and what they could mean for Lantzville in years when there is a low snowpack followed by a drought. She said the results will have a major impact on the water master plan going forward and questioned whether Lantzville could hand out new water connections.
“Given that our numbers are going down significantly year to year, we are going to have to question what level we are going to have for water that is going to be available,” she said.
Coun. Bob Colclough said while the results are disappointing, 2,380 cubic metres of water per day is still lots of water, adding that residents shouldn’t worry that water is running out or even coming close to drying up.
“Whether it is 5,000 or 2,380, the number that you use for the standard should be based on consumption,” he said. “This is an unfortunate result, there is no question about it. But it is what it is and we move on.”
Mayor Colin Haime said it feels like Lantzville is going in circles with water reports.
“We’ve been through a variety of engineers over the time and these things seem to change. Each engineer comes up and says the previous engineer was wrong. I just feel like we are at that state again, they’re saying the previous engineer was wrong … well, it turns out those previous engineers actually weren’t as wrong as we thought.”
The results mean that Lantzville does not have the ability to provide any additional water connections. The district previously stated in July that it had 19.7 water connections to hand out to existing residents, but in an e-mailed response to the News Bulletin, Spears said that is no longer the case.
nicholas.pescod@nanaimobulletin.com
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