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Preferred water source
Is Picton Bay water safe? Those promoting a regional water plan (drawing water from Lake Ontario in Wellington and pumping it 20 kilometres to Picton) point to the vulnerability of the pipes that stretch 91 and 305 metres into Picton Bay, pulling water into the treatment plant. The water is too shallow, the Bay too busy, and the threats too many and varied to continue to risk the town’s water from this source, they argue.
It is shallow. Just 3.3 metres deep. It can be busy with pleasure and commercial craft criss-crossing the bay. And, surrounded by residential and commercial development, the water intakes are threatened by potential contamination from septic systems, creek runoff, or high winds stirring up sediment in the bay. For some, the accumulation of potential threats amounts to a compelling reason to spend $300 million to draw water 20 kilometres from Wellington— with all the engineering and construction hazards such a scheme would unleash. Or a doubling or tripling of water bills. And the highest development charges this side of Oshawa.
But is it true? Is Picton Bay too vulnerable for a reliable drinking water source? A comprehensive study conducted for the municipality just 12 years ago concluded the answer was no.
Strangely, the municipally funded examination of the issues, challenges, and potential remedies for Picton’s water source was rarely mentioned during the frenzy to expand waterworks infrastructure over the past six years. The 2014 study was overwhelmed by the desperate need to prepare for the thousands of new homes that would soon sprout around Picton and Wellington.
The Picton Intake Study deserves a reread now that the mirage of soaring population growth has receded.
The Picton Intake Class Environmental Assessment was conducted in the aftermath of the Source Water Protection Program, which found that Picton’s water intakes were highly vulnerable to a variety of contaminants.
Over 281 pages of detailed, technical analysis, the report presents a vast array of maps, charts and tables along with a thorough assessment of a dizzying array of potential water sources for Picton. It looks at Lake Ontario in Wellington, Lake on the Mountain and seven other locations in Picton Bay.
The report weighs the alternatives against criteria ranging from their ability to address water quality and vulnerabilities, future growth of the town, life-cycle costs, constructability, and improved operation and maintenance potential. Straightforward stuff.
The study sifts through a mountain of data against the vulnerabilities identified in the Source Water Protection Program—a thorough examination of all County water sources conducted a few years earlier. The 2014 report concludes that the ‘preferred’ source is a new, longer intake into deeper water in Picton Bay.
In 2014, the authors identified a new location 1,700 metres out into the bay. The cost estimate then was $6.8 million. Given recent concerns about increased activity at Picton Terminals, the next-best location today is likely 3,500 metres out from the water plant, resting in nearly 10 metres of water. The cost: $10.6 million.
A far cry less expensive, less risky and less environmentally intrusive than a pipeline to Wellington.
But does cost really matter when it comes to safe water?
It turns out there is no ideal water source— only water sources that need to be managed and treated. As the County Director of Waterworks Operations, Don Caza, noted to council two weeks ago, “Every intake has vulnerability.”
It is the entire purpose of the Source Water Protection Program: to assess vulnerabilities and develop methods and policies to manage threats, all while ensuring that all sources produce safe, clean drinking water.
Director Caza was responding to Councillor David Harrison, who recently raised concerns at a Council committee meeting that centralizing the water supply for Picton, Bloomfield, and Wellington into a single point of failure created a boatload of risks.
For example, he pointed to the risk of an adverse event at either of the nuclear plants in Pickering and Darlington, and soon in Wesleyville. A damaged water transmission pipeline. A toxic event in the lake.
“If something fails (with the single source),” said Councillor Harrison, “There is no alternative. Our exposure is too great.”
His observations offer a reminder that assessing water sources requires a great deal of heavy analysis, technical insight, and in-depth social and economic modelling. It requires balancing complex and occasionally contradictory objectives.
The good news is that this heavy lifting is already done.
Before the County takes another step toward a potentially ruinous and radical water plan, it must first reread its 2014 report on the Picton Intake Replacement alternatives. It must explain why it isn’t the final word on the subject. What new knowledge has been unearthed that renders its analysis inoperable?
Collectively, we ought not skip over this important piece of work simply because it doesn’t fit the current narrative.
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