Okotoks may have found a little more breathing room for its limited water supply.
The Town has applied to Alberta Environment to approve the transfer of a water licence from a developer and if the transfer is approved, Okotoks will get an additional 40,705 cubic metres of water per year.
Okotoks Mayor Bill Robertson said the new licence should be enough to provide water for another 300 people.
“It’s pretty small but certainly everything counts,” he said.
This will be added to two licences bought by the Town in December, giving it enough water for a population of 27,000, at a consumption rate of 65 gallons per person per day. The other licences acquired by the Town included one for 28,864 cubic metres of water and another for 216,476 cubic metres.
Okotoks’ municipal manager Rick Quail said the license is owned by a numbered company and developer APEX developments helped to facilitate the transfer. The developer has proposed the Mountain View at Sandstone development west of the existing Sandstone community.
Quail would not say at this point how much the Town is paying to acquire the license.
“I can’t speak to the specifics of any deal because it is business confidential at this point,” he said.
Municipal operations manager Dave Robertson said the licence is a seasonal water licence for use during the months of May to September only. This won’t be much of a problem, he said, because this is when the Town faces the largest demand for water.
The Province requires a 30-day advertising period, which will end on July 1. If no comments or appeals are received, he said he expects the application to be approved soon after.
If the transfer is approved, the provincial government will hold back about 10 per cent of the licence.
The Town is not including a request for return flow credits in its application for the licence.
The Town returns about 80 per cent of the water it uses back into the Sheep River. It has asked the Province to be able to draw more water out of the river in recognition for this practice, but was turned down in December. The Town has since launched an appeal of this decision.
Mayor Robertson said the Town may reserve the right to request return flow credits, depending on the outcome of the appeal.
Town council is currently considering options for a long-term solution to its water supply woes and is expected to make a decision sometime next year.
In the meantime, Mayor Robertson said buying licences is the best way to expand Okotoks’ water supply in the short-term.
“This certainly is the most immediate way to access more water,” he said.
The Town may have already found another licence as the mayor said it is looking at the possibility of acquiring a licence six times larger than the one is has applied to acquire.
“It’s a significant size, but at this point there’s nothing firm, so we’re certainly looking at all avenues,” he said.
