About the Arrowsmith Water Service
The first regional water study commenced in 1972 and incorporated all the Regional District of Nanaimo's water supply needs ranging from Bowser to Cedar. Three sources of future surface water supply were identified as Cameron Lake, Englishman River and Jump Creek.A comprehensive water supply study was completed in 1988. This was an integrated regional water study that focused on the Englishman River and Nanaimo River, South Fork - Jump Creek. At this time it was decided the Greater Nanaimo Water District (now the City of Nanaimo) would proceed on its own as it was determined to be more feasible for the Water District to develop its own water supply system.
In 1990, a referendum approved the borrowing of $450,000 for pre-design of a regional water supply system to serve the area from Lantzville to Qualicum Beach with a focus on Englishman River and Bonell Creek. Pre-design was conducted between 1991 and 1993 which concluded that it was more feasible to have two separate water systems (Qualicum Beach, Parksville and Nanoose (RDN) to be served by the Englishman River and Lantzville to be served by Bonell Creek).
A referendum held in 1995 to approve the design and construction of a bulk water supply system under the auspices of the Regional District of Nanaimo was defeated. Cameron Lake was ruled out by the province and the three jurisdictions were encouraged to focus on the Englishman River as a joint water supply source that would benefit fish.
The City of Parksville limited its referendum to the borrowing for the dam only, whereas the Regional District of Nanaimo referendum provided authority for borrowing its projected share of the entire bulk water supply system over a 25 year period to supply bulk water to its systems in French Creek and Nanoose. Qualicum Beach paid for its share of the dam from reserves and thus did not hold a referendum. The bulk water volume required for Breakwater bulk water customers (currently EPCOR - French Creek) was included in the RDN's allocation as it is part of the overall RDN bulk water service area.
The Arrowsmith Water Service was formed in July 1996 as a joint venture between the Regional District of Nanaimo, the City of Parksville and the Town of Qualicum Beach. The original capital plan, presented as part of the 1995 pre-design of the bulk water supply system, was approved for the design and construction of the Arrowsmith Dam by all partners of the AWS joint venture. The original plan concentrated on an intake at the confluence of the Englishman and South Englishman River with the treatment facility and other associated works located on Block 602.
A conditional water license was issued in March 1997 authorizing the construction of the Arrowsmith Dam, a maximum withdrawal of 47,888 cubic metres per day of water from the Englishman River for the proposed bulk water system and the storage of 9,000,000 cubic metres of water at Arrowsmith Lake. The Conditional Water Licence and corresponding Provisional Operating Rule were issued based on the premise of utilizing the existing City of Parksville water intake in the interim until the future proposed water intake and treatment facility were completed.
The design of the Arrowsmith Dam commenced in early 1997 and construction started in 1997. The dam was formally commissioned in September 2000.Between 2000 and 2005, further progress of the AWS capital plan focussed on the future intake location. The capital plan adopted a triple bottom line approach of weighing environmental, economic and social factors and determined that the best intake location would be downstream of the originally proposed intake site.
It was determined that this option presented cost savings over the option of an upstream intake and also provided substantial long-term fisheries benefits for the Englishman River due to extending the low flow enhancement further downstream from summer releases at the Arrowsmith Dam. This benefit will become more significant over time as climate change could adversely affect the low flow regime of the river. This option received conditional support from the AWS management committee in 2005 and the report was finalized in 2008.
In 2009, the Arrowsmith Water Service retained Associated Engineering through a quality-based selection process to further develop the capital plan based on the downstream option. The primary objectives of the study were two-fold:
- To determine the site and development concept for a new water intake, water treatment plant on the Englishman River.
- An equally important objective was to determine how the surface water and groundwater resources can be best managed.
