The District of Lantzville’s water pipeline will be constructed by a Nanaimo-based company.
Lantzville councillors voted 4-3 to award the construction contract for the water pipeline to Copcan Civil Ltd. at a meeting earlier this month.
Copcan is now tasked with constructing roughly 980 metres of water pipeline from 7075 Lantzville Rd. to Schook Road, where it will physically connect to Nanaimo’s water system, but won’t result in water flowing into the district yet.
Copcan’s winning bid of $633,360 came with an estimated completion time of 90 days. In a report to council, staff recommended councillors select Copcan’s bid because it was the cheapest price and had the fastest estimated time for completion. The report also states that Copcan is a “respected” company in the construction industry and has extensive experience with water infrastructure projects.
Coun. Denise Haime said the district is currently in the middle of an official community plan review and water master plan and it makes more sense to wait and find out how much water Lantzville has before spending a significant amount of money.
“We haven’t heard back on the water master plan. We don’t know if any other areas want water. We don’t know what they are willing to pay for it. We don’t even know if we have enough water in our existing wells, which are being rehabilitated,” she said.
Coun. Bob Colclough said while he is very interested in finding out how much water Lantzville may have, the pipeline’s construction will provide the district with a badly needed backup supply of water in the event of an emergency.
“This is to put a pipe in the ground so that the existing residents and the future residents have a water supply in case of an emergency,” Colclough said. “This has been recommended by our consultants and by our staff.”
However, Coun. John Coulson questioned the rational that the pipeline is all about an emergency supply for Lantzville, telling councillors the district’s recent grant application requesting funding for the pipeline’s construction makes no reference to the pipeline being used as a backup.
“In the project description it refers to it as ‘this project will provide the District of Lantzville with a second water source to supplement the existing Harby Road well field,’” Coulson said. “The only point of putting this pipe in the ground is to eventually turn on Nanaimo water and it is very poor of us to represent it otherwise.”
Coun. Will Geselbracht said the issue has been debated “almost” to death and that the pipeline’s construction gives Lantzville an important alternate source of water.
“We’re another step closer water redundancy, meaning lots of water so we can move ahead with the OCP and the water master plan and that we demilitarize the issue of water in this community,” he said. “We will have water and then we can plan what we want to do with it.”
Lantzville councillors will have to decide when to officially trigger the $1.3-million water agreement.
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