City Demands Water Contract

By Corey Fischer

Dec 19, 2018 | 3:00 PM

A spat has broken out between Armstrong and Spallumcheen over water.

The City of Armstrong has served Spallumcheen with one year’s notice to terminate a water supply agreement with the township and its water districts.

Armstrong Mayor Chris Pieper says they won’t be stopping anyone’s water, but he says they been trying for ten years to get a contract with the township for supply of water which uses the city’s infrastructure.

Pieper says all they have now is a memorandum of understanding. (view it here)

“The primary reason is we want to review all of the supply agreements that we have with all the water districts in Spall. They are very old and we want to review them. We don’t want to terminate anybody’s water of anything like that, but at the end of the day, we’re hoping to have an agreement or contract in place to recognize water use, water supply, and to look after the conservation of water as far as allotment goes to everybody,” Pieper tells Beach Radio News

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Pieper says the key is getting a contract in place.

“We have a memorandum but that’s it. We want to be able to sit down with the water districts and Spall — Spall right now controls, I believe, four of the water districts — and generate a contract for supply of water from our infrastructure. We have no intention of looking after their infrastructure or anything like that. We want to be able to negotiate with them a per metre rate that recognizes our costs and to supply water to them.”

Spallumcheen mayor Christine Fraser says she is a bit disappointed the city took this route rather than letting a working group sort it out, but says they will be working on the issue, and is confident a new agreement can be reached.

“There’s a few things in Spallumcheen that are very important to our residents and that are in the historic water agreements, and there’s a few things that are very important to Armstrong. There is things in there that we are both willing to look at. Some of these agreements when they were first formed, they didn’t look at asset management and replacement of the assets down the road, those sort of things. Nowadays, we as municipalities are trying to be more responsible with that and managed our assets and make sure we can fund the replacement of them so it doesn’t just fall on future generations.”

Fraser says they will be working with the water districts .

“The one big thing I want to stress for our residents is any of the water districts that received notice, this will be a priority one communication for the township. Any of the water districts that want to meet with us, we can meet early in the new year, and any questions they have they can phone the township,” Fraser tells Beach Radio News.

by Corey Fischer