Sidney's fire chief says he's "excited" about $176,000 in new provincial funding for a disaster-safe water supply project that's been a decade in the making.
"I've been personally, as fire chief, trying to work on this project for about 10 years," said Brett Mikkelsen, who also serves as Sidney Fire Hall's emergency management coordinator.
The Town of Sidney will receive the money through the new Disaster Resilience and Innovation Funding (DRIF) program. This particular Sidney project will help the community access alternative sources of potable water in the event of a disaster – a need Mikkelsen calls critical.
Currently, all water in the Capital Regional District (CRD) comes from a single source: the Sooke Reservoir, which feeds the entire peninsula through a large main. While Mikkelsen said it's a "very robust system," he noted it remains vulnerable to disruptions, like large seismic events or big wildfires.
In a disaster scenario, only a small percentage of the population has stored emergency water in their homes or is prepared for such an event, he said. Sidney, with an older demographic, is particularly vulnerable.
"We have such an aged population... they just won't tolerate being without drinking water and those services as much as a different municipality with a different demographic."
The grant will help Sidney Fire Hall better prepare to distribute water from reservoirs, by working in tandem with a recent CRD project.
Mikkelsen explained that the CRD has installed seismic valves on select water reservoirs designed to withstand earthquakes. These reservoirs are identified and accessible through blue hydrants. Installing these reservoirs, he said, was cheaper than making the entire Sooke Reservoir line seismically resilient.
There are three blue hydrants on the Saanich Peninsula. Should a disaster strike, the water supply at these hydrants should be accessible, and the grant money will help the fire department perform the "big undertaking" of distributing the water from the reservoirs to residents.
The fire hall has purchased a large four-wheel drive truck that will be outfitted with a large potable water tank.
The department has also identified three locations called CPOTs, or Community Points of Distribution, in Sidney, where a shipping container with a water manifold and portable tank will be set up.
The truck will fill up at blue hydrants and shuttle water to the tanks. From there, people can go and fill four-litre water bags.
"We figured, based on the volumes in the reservoir, we could probably do that for seven to 10 days. That would allow repairs to be conducted or alternative measures to be put in place," Mikkelsen said.
He hopes to have the initial run-through test in late July or early August.
Mikkelsen said reaching this stage has been a long road due to multiple challenges. Emergency management is handled by the fire department and isn't always a top priority. Distributing water is also an "expensive endeavor" that requires a thoughtful plan. Mikkelsen said they vetted other options, including considering re-establishing Sidney's well infrastructure, which they ultimately decided against.
"Being able to get it to this point, it's a pretty big accomplishment for our team," he said.
Looking ahead, he hopes the truck can assist other CRD neighbours, particularly those who don't have hydrants and could use assistance with water delivery for firefighting.
"I believe we're the first municipality that's actually going to set up and be fully capable of delivering water to their entire municipality," he said.
"Hopefully, other municipalities can mimic and build off of what we've done. I'm kind of excited about it not just being Sidney-centric."
Sidney is among 46 communities across B.C. sharing over $40 million in provincial funding for 61 projects related to natural hazards and climate-caused disasters.
