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Buffalo Pound Water Treatment Corp. finished 2020 with surplus of $1M

Despite the disruptions of the pandemic, the Buffalo Pound Water Treatment Plant (BPWTP) met all regulatory requirements in 2020, while the corporation finished the year with a surplus of over $1 million.
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Moose Jaw City Hall (Larissa Kurz photograph)

Despite the disruptions of the pandemic, the Buffalo Pound Water Treatment Plant (BPWTP) met all regulatory requirements in 2020, while the corporation finished the year with a surplus of over $1 million.

The plant was considered a critical and essential service, so management had to ensure the venue could operate with sufficient staff and resources to meet the needs of Regina and Moose Jaw, Ryan Johnson, president and CEO, told city council during its recent regular meeting. 

The plant met all regulatory requirements and criteria in producing safe drinking water throughout the year, he continued. Staff and management identified 39 risks that could have prevented the plant from meeting its mandate to provide water to the region. However, many — if not most — of these problems will be addressed during the plant renewal project. 

“We’ve been working on process changes to reduce the impacts on customers,” he said. 

A positive development last year was how staff reduced the amount of trihalomethanes (THM) — a group of chemicals that can contaminate drinking water — at the plant. Several studies have suggested a link between THMs exposure and risk of bladder, colon, and rectum cancers.

THMs have been a problem since 2015 and averaged about 78 micrograms per litre (ug/L), Johnson said. However, in February, the plant ceased pre-chlorinating water and reduced THMs to 16 ug/L, a decline of 79 per cent. This also reduced THMs in Moose Jaw and Regina by 46 per cent and 43 per cent, respectively.

“With the plant renewal (project), we can reduce that further with different technology,” said Johnson, noting construction will start in early 2022 while the plant will be recommissioned in 2025. 

The Water Security Agency says the maximum acceptable concentration for total THMs in drinking water is 100 ug/L.  

In April 2020, the corporation deleted and deferred some operational costs so it did not operate in a deficit since management did not know what water sales would be due to the pandemic’s economic effects, he continued. However, last year was warm and dry, so water sales — $13.189 million in revenue and $12.170 million in expenses — nearly met the organization’s financial forecast. The corporation finished with a surplus of $1.019 million.

The corporation charged Regina and Moose Jaw $355 per megalitre (mL) last year, which was unchanged from the year before, Johnson said. Total sales to Regina were 29,554.15 megalitres and 5,084.60 megalitres to Moose Jaw, a decline of 2.35 per cent and 2.14 per cent, respectively, compared to 2019. 

Overall sales of water — including to SaskWater — were 34,860.30 megalitres.

The plant provides water to roughly 260,000 people in the region, Mayor Fraser Tolmie said after Johnson’s presentation. With the corporation recently receiving $164 million in federal-provincial funding for the plant renewal project, the mayor wondered how much extra Moose Jaw taxpayers would have had to pay for water if that funding hadn’t arrived.

The corporation will charge $250 per megalitre as part of its capital rate for the next 25 years, but a lack of federal-provincial funding would have forced the organization to increase rates to $375 per megalitre — or nearly 50 per cent, Johnson replied. So, the funding saved taxpayers from paying an extra 12.5 cents per cubic megalitre. 

“To me, the most notable point of the report is the labour negotiations,” said Coun. Jamey Logan. “We can put all the money in that we want, but without people there, the plant can’t run. So the five-year agreement, that’s wonderful news.”

The next regular council meeting is Monday, June 28.  

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