Mayor's Report - October 2006

Last November, the Dayton & Knight analysis of water source options affirmed the preferred option as the District of North Vancouver (DNV) submarine water main crossing. On May 15^th Council awarded the pre-design study of the preferred option to Dayton & Knight to enhance an anticipated application for an infrastructure funding grant. Key aspects of the Pre-design Study were:

• Confirming best alignment route(s) through a review of marine charts, geographic references, and consultation with VPA and DNV.
• Identifying alignment considerations for costing, environmental constraints, and public lands that include built-in redundancy for damage and maintenance.
• Identifying required environmental assessments for the marine crossing.
• Undertaking detailed hydraulic modeling of the proposed system that builds upon the DNV model.
• Determining the regulatory approval requirements of VPA, BERC, GVWD and the DNV.
• Pre-designing hydraulic requirements and infrastructure costing, predicated upon alignment and DNV modeling.
• Reaffirming the total capital cost to construct the water main distribution system not existing at the time the study is being prepared.
• Providing a 20-year projection of the annual capital debt servicing cost per household for the water supply distribution infrastructure.

On October 16^th Jack Lee (Project Manager) and Walt Bayless (Project Engineer) of Dayton & Knight attended a Council information meeting to provide an overview of the study findings. Approximately 50 residents attended the information meeting, and many questions were answered by the engineers. A synopsis report of the study that was available at the meeting will be mail-dropped to the community as a whole.

The pre-design study identified the preferred alignment of the submarine crossing as originating from Strathcona Road, at Cove Cliff in DNV, and terminating at Midden Road in Belcarra. The distance of this crossing is only 1.4 km, and the cost of a twinned 200mm HDPE pipe crossing at this alignment is estimated at $2.6 million. Additional new water main construction in Belcarra is estimated to cost $2.2 million, with an additional $1.1 million required for residential service connections that include water meters. Assuming a two-thirds cost-sharing infrastructure grant, the annual capital cost is estimated at $630 per year per property, and the annual operating cost is estimated at $220 per year per property (based on a typical water consumption rate), for a total annual estimated cost of $850 per year per property.

On October 13^th the provincial government announced the launch of the Canada – British Columbia Municipal Rural Infrastructure Fund, and it is Council’s intent to make application for infrastructure funding under this program. As “next steps”, Council also intends to make application to the Vancouver Port Authority (VPA) regarding the water main crossing and initiate the requisite environmental assessment for the project. All of these steps take time, but they can be pursued as parallel activities.

As the foregoing indicates, Belcarra Council is actively working toward the objective of obtaining infrastructure funding for a municipal potable water distribution system.

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