With Fall here, and the winter months not far behind, the Pembina Valley Water Co-op is looking back on Summer as a good season, with the utility able to keep up with demands.
C.E.O Dale Toews noted the co-op felt it made real progress on the continual algae issues it experiences.
"This was our first full summer of implementing that pretreatment for algae and for zebra mussels at Morris, and that has proven very successful," he explained. "Having that raw water storage pond at Morris really gives us the opportunity to do this pretreatment to improve that raw water quality entering the plant, so the plant can just run that much more efficiently."
Toews noted, generally, the year has been normal system wide, with slightly lower flows during our peak seasons due to the rains the region had.
"We have not had issues keeping up with demands this summer," he said.
Looking ahead to the winter months, Toews is also optimistic about the Co-op's position.
"The Red River is still classified as above normal flows at 4,852 cubic feet per second, so that's quite a bit higher than it was this time last year, and Stephenfield Lake also is classified as above normal," with Toews noting water only stopped spilling over the dam at the beginning of August. "With our storages being full to nearly full, we feel we're in pretty decent shape to carry us through the winter. But again, these highs can be short lived as we saw this last spring with such little recharge, and we were pretty concerned. Then the spring rains came and summer rains, and that changed our position at Pembina Valley."
You can listen to more of Dale Toews comments below in the latest episode of Ripple Effect, presented by the Red River Basin Commission.