By Sebastian Kanally, Times Chronicle

Despite a previous defeat, Oliver will go ahead with a grant application to help purchase a backup generator. 

The grant application which was presented at council’s July 15 meeting saw councillors being split on whether the town really needed such a resource. Considering the cost of $120,000 to the town, council defeated the motion to seek more information about renting them. 

The total cost of the project is $400,000. This amount consists of $325,000 for the generator and $65,000 for the connections to all the pumphouses. 

The minimum amount of funding the town expects from the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) would be 70 per cent of the cost, making the FCM grant contribution $280,000, leaving the town to contribute $120,000. 

At the July meeting water councillor Rick Machial and councillor David Mattes raised questions about whether the town really needed the generator, how often it would be used, do other nearby towns have these generators and how much it would cost to rent one if it was needed.  

The backup generator is for the town to have a backup power supply for the town to continue to service water during emergencies such as wildfires or other power outages. If there is a power outage that impacts one of the town’s pumphouses the generator would be able to provide power to keep supplying water. 

Town staff came back with information to the Aug 6 council meeting explaining that to rent one in the case of an emergency would cost around $6,500 for one week, excluding delivery from Vancouver, gas, training, and other associated costs. 

Kelly Mercer, Director of Operations also explained to council at that meeting that in between the two council meetings power went out at a pumphouse where they could have used the generator. 

He explained that “on Wednesday July 24 there was a power outage in Black Sage area. The pumpstations in the area stopped operating due to lack of power. The town made changes to the water system to deliver some domestic water to the area during the power outage using other parts of the water system. But the town could still not provide fire protection to this area.”

The power was out for five hours and was exactly the situation the generator would be used for. 

Councillors Mattes, Machial, and Bhupinder Dhaliwal voted against the motion but it still passed four votes to three.