Lack of expertise could cost $30,000 (Corrected)

City engineering staff “can’t give the answers” to properly fixing problems which led to a drinking water advisory in the Airport Road-Carmichael Drive area of North Bay, Coun. Tom Mason said Monday night.

Council could approve paying up to $30,000 to a consultant to expand a review of the city’s Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition system (SCADA).

A programming malfunction a day before the advisory was issued caused SCADA to fail to deliver information that communications between the Ellendale reservoir and the CFB reservoir had failed.

As a result water pressure was lost, resulting in the advisory.

Mason, chairman of the Engineering and Works Committee, said while the city knows what went wrong, the consultant is needed to make sure the problem is properly fixed.

“We want to fix this and fix it properly,” Mason said.
“Unfortunately there’s nobody within the city’s engineering department who can give us the answers as to how to fix this and to move it forward.”

Mason said the $30,000 is money well-spent “if the problem is fixed correctly, and that is what we’re trying to do.”

A second advisory was subsequently issued, but it was triggered by the break-down of a back-up pump which kicked in after an electrical storm left the city without power two weeks ago.

The matter has been referred to the engineering and works committee.