New Water Intake Facility

A few months ago I was able to take a tour of the new water intake facility.  This building is located up river from Saskatoon.  In the photo below, we are standing on the river bottom (inside the coffer dam).  The two new massive water intake screens are behind us.  A short time after this photo, the coffer dam was burst, the river flooded around the facility, and the area where I was standing is now under 30-40 feet of water. 

This new facility can process water for the treatment plant much faster, to avoid the shortages we had in 2011.  This past summer, the increase in water flow in the South Saskatchewan River clogged our systems and slowed down our ability to process water for drinking.  For much of the summer, we were hauling 2-3 dump trucks full of silt/sand from our Water Treatment Plant every few days.  It was clogging our filters.  Water quality was never compromised but quantity was.  This new facility can process much more water than our old water intake, and has the ability to unclog itself with blasts of compressed air whenever we need to.  We built this facility with the city's rapid, sustained growth in mind, so it is adequate to serve the city of Saskatoon for generations to come.