Mayor Brain, City Council members and MLA Rice tour Woodworth Dam as city announces project completion

Time to cut a ribbon for the Mayor, Council and MLA as the City
declares Woodworth Dam work complete
(Photo from City of PR)

It's not quite in service just yet, with commissioning and the switching over of the waterline still to come, but Council members and MLA Jennifer Rice shared some photos today of their trip to the Woodworth Dam site. 

That as the group toured the newest of civic infrastructure. With the city celebrating what they call  the completion of the long running project, a major initiative which has seen a number of delays from its original completion timeline.

The Project shifted into high gear  in 2015 with the replacement of a water supply line and construction of an access road. The original timeline as noted in the Hays 2.0 presentation was set for 2019.

However that hopeful completion date, morphed into the seven year odyssey of construction taking us to the fall of 2022.

The City in its information release of today noting of a range of issues from weather related landslides to supply problems for the extension of the completion time, noting today that contractors Eiffage Canada are now in the home stretch of the project. 

Today's message observing how City residents will soon return to our primary water supply. 

The announcement from the City however does advise of a few steps ahead, before the city returns to its primary water supply at Woodworth Lake. 

Included on the list; excavation of the streambed, road development, switching over the waterline, and any remaining environmental works before the contractors leave the site. 

An additional release will follow once all remaining project activities are completed, and the City returns to its original water supply.

The early stages of the Dam replacement process was started in 2014 during the final term of office for former Mayor Jack Mussallem, but the bulk of the work took place during the two terms of office that Mayor Lee Brain  has been at the helm of the City.

As part of today's announcement, which comes one day before the 2022 Municipal election, the Mayor observed of the current phase and that which will follow.

“Replacement of this most critical piece of 100 year old water infrastructure was a major investment that Council saw through over the last two terms. 

Since 2016 we have been pumping from our secondary water supply as upgrades have been underway, and in the next few weeks we will be able to switch back to our primary water supply. 

The last component will be water filtration, which is currently in the engineering phase. We want to thank the community for their continued patience during this process.”

The Mayor making note of the municipal election as part of his own Social Media message of Friday.

During significant portions of the time that the City was using the secondary water source residents were faced with Boil Water notices and orders. 

Many continued to rely on bottled water or other sources for their day to day home requirements, owing to the ongoing water advisories that came over the last few years.

The City's full statement and photos from today can  be reviewed here.

You can follow the path of the project from start to today's milestone through our archive page of Major Projects and Infrastructure.

Cross posted from the North Coast Review.