Photo via City of Merritt
UPDATE 5:45 p.m. – The City of Merritt says it has replaced a gasket in the Voght Street pump station well after it suffered a “major failure” that led to issues with the water distribution system.
The failure led to a notice to residents to not use water for non-essential purposes like watering lawns and washing cars until further notice. People will still be able to water their vegetable gardens, though there was no mention of showers or toilets.
“Staff are working hard on trying to get that back up and running but that means that our reservoirs are not getting filled as they normally would,” Merritt CAO Cynthia White said, noting the Voght Street pump is the community’s main source of water.
“We do have our two other pumps running but they don’t run the same amount that Voght Street does, so they’re filling the reservoirs more slowly.”
In an update at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, the City of Merritt said that water sprayed onto the pump’s electrical system during the failure.
“The electrical engineer is recommending that the system dry out for 48 hours before restarting and testing systems,” a statement from the City of Merritt said.
The statement also says that staff have been able to increase output on the Collettville Pump Station to lessen the severity of the impact of the Voght Well failure, but that the water system is not operating at full capacity.
White also told Radio NL that the failure is not affecting the water treatment plant in Merritt, meaning people can still drink the water coming out of their taps.
“The biggest concern becomes if we use a lot of water and those reservoirs don’t fill up quickly enough, then we’re in the potential situation where our fire department may not have enough water to access for an emergency,” White said.
White previously told Radio NL that in a perfect scenario, there was a chance that the restrictions could be lifted as early as Wednesday, July 10.
“But I feel like given the state of things in the world right now, I’m not going to hold my breath on that,” White added.
“If things are perfect, we could be back up and running just fine tomorrow, but we’re working cautiously to make sure that we don’t rush and that we do this in a way that is not result in and out failure in the next few days.”
