The City of Yellowknife has started drawing water from Yellowknife Bay rather than the Yellowknife River to ensure it can meet demand while a large number of leaks are repaired.
Residents across the city have reported issues with pipes since an hours-long power outage earlier this month. Recent ultra-cold temperatures have not helped.
Earlier this week, the CBC reported a water main break that flooded one of the city’s roads. Similar problems on a smaller scale have been documented in other locations.
One resident described leaving their garage door open for days to let water escape from a burst pipe below the structure.
In an email published to a regulatory registry on Wednesday, the city said it was “currently responding to a significant number of water breaks.”
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“To ensure the City can continue to maintain levels within the reservoirs, the City has temporarily transitioned its raw water intake from the Yellowknife River to Yellowknife Bay,” City Hall environmental impact and regulatory affairs manager Tim Morton wrote.
“This switch is necessary to meet current demand while repairs are underway.
“Based on current assessments, the City anticipates returning to the Yellowknife River within approximately 48 hours. This timeline is subject to change depending on system conditions and repair progress.”
The city has done this before. The Yellowknife River intake pipe is smaller than the Yellowknife Bay intake, so the city can quickly bring in much more water from the bay than it can from the river. When a lot of water is being lost to breaks in the system, that’s important.
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Ordinarily, the city’s water is drawn from the Yellowknife River – using an 8.5-km underwater pipe – in part to avoid the risk of Giant Mine, the bayside site of a former gold mine, contaminating the bay’s water.
The risk of that happening is low. Unless something major fails at Giant Mine, water in Yellowknife Bay is considered safe by the mine remediation team and the municipality. The city has in the past called the bay and river “two pristine sources” of water.
Even so, reports have concluded the Yellowknife River (which is upstream of Giant) should remain the preferred option.
