The District of 100 Mile House has selected a contractor to redevelop the community's wells,
During the district's regular council meeting on Nov. 12 council voted unanimously to award the contract to Precision Service and Pumps Inc. who bid $289,577 for the redevelopment, beating out Robbins Drilling and Pump Ltd and Drillwell Enterprises, who bid $397,250 and $405,850 respectively. Todd Conway, the director of community services with the District of 100 Mile House, said Precision is a company that works with wells and reconditioning redevelopment.
"Precision was the lowest price and was highly recommended," Conway stated about the company.
This decision comes after the district put out a request for a quote (RFQ) to redevelop the wells in collaboration with Western Water Associates Ltd and TRUE Consulting Ltd. Contractors had from Sept. 20 to Oct. 10 to submit bids.
While Precision did bid the lowest, the onset of winter has necessitated additional costs being added to the estimate.
"The division of the works has added an additional cost of $13,945 bringing the total estimate from Precision to $303,520.76," stated the report delivered to council. "Completing the initial works on DW5 will ensure that it is performing efficiently as the community will be solely dependent on this water supply during the redevelopment of DW4 and DW6." The DW in DW4, 5, and 6 stands for Drill Well.
The report additionally says that the work on the wells is expected to be fully completed by May 15, 2024.
"This is an ongoing, long process of trying to get to a better place with the water in 100 Mile House," Pinkney said during the meeting.
The District has been under water restrictions since Aug. 7 due to water monitoring system alarms detecting low reservoir levels. After further testing, the district discovered that the wells had not been performing at the developed capacity, affecting the water system. Conway says that water consumption is much lower in the winter and the district expects their current water supply will be sufficient until the redevelopment is completed.
"We're hoping that all things go back to normal on May 15 - as long as all the redevelopment goes as well as we hope, then everything will be back to normal," Conway stated. "We feel it's the timeline we can meet."
