Spallumcheen council has endorsed moving ahead with a sewer treatment feasibility project.
The project includes a partnership with the Okanagan Indian Band and Regional District of North Okanagan Areas B and C.
“The three communities have developed a strategic direction for waste water recovery at the north end of Swan Lake,” wrote Greg Leighton, of Kelowna-based Urban Systems, who prepared a 25-page report on phase one of the project.
In his report, Leighton said the Swan Lake corridor has, “long been considered ideal for commercial and light industrial land uses and affords an excellent employment-generating opportunity.”
But the lack of community sewer service not only presents an impediment to effective land-use planning, said Leighton, but results in an increased risk of soil and water contamination through extensive use of on-site septic ground disposal systems.
Those systems preclude any chance to reuse treated water for irrigation.
Spallumcheen council has unanimously supported the report’s recommendation to submit a joint application to the B.C. Rural Dividend Funding Association with areas B and C and the Okanagan Indian Band to fund phase two of the project, estimated to be $100,000.
The association would cover a maximum of $60,000. The partners would fund one-third each in the amount of $3,333 from in-kind contributions, and $10,000 which the township would pay using gas tax funds.