Message from the Chairperson

A lot has happened in the last couple of months. First off, we are in the process of contracting with a professional water operator called South Okanagan Waterworks (SOW). They are a company from Kaleden who presently oversee the operations of other small water systems in the South Okanagan.  They have the water certification credentials that Interior Health now requires of us.  They also have 16 years of experience in managing water systems and have licensed plumbers.  They will be sharing in the hands-on monitoring of our system as well as all the repairs and upgrades required.  The repairs already performed by SOW were instrumental in getting our system off the Boil Water Notice. See attached Company Overview for more information.

Hiring this professional company will bring much more expertise to our team, which includes:

• Pete Hormes is our longest serving Trustee - 10 years
• David Forst is staying on as a Trustee in an advisory capacity until our AGM in April
• Chad Wetter is staying on as a Water Bailiff and is willing to help us whenever he can until the AGM
• Derek Jedrusiak has volunteered to run for Trustee at the next AGM and is already helping us from the experience he garnered from his career as a civil engineering technician designing utilities for new developments
• I have agreed to remain as Chairperson

In my last message I mentioned that we will have a meeting soon to discuss our options. That was a little optimistic of me.  It is too early to have this meeting because we do not yet have enough information about our alternatives in providing safe drinking water and the costs involved.  We need to have some legal opinions and estimates for these questions before we can make informed decisions.  In the meantime, with the guidance of SOW, we can expect to have a safe and clean source of drinking water while we investigate these answers.  As soon as we have these answers we will organize a meeting.

Feel free to direct any questions to: skahaestateswater@gmail.com

Regards,

Ron Desilets

Chairperson