City to get prep work started on long-term water supply measure

Iqaluit city council has contracted an engineering firm to design a weir for Unnamed Lake, in another step toward establishing a long-term water supply for the municipality.

“We wanted to get this work awarded so we can start work early on, instead of waiting until next year,” the city’s director of engineering and capital planning, Sumon Ghosh, said at Tuesday’s council meeting.

The purpose is to collect water flow data from Unnamed Lake, which the Nunavut Water Board requires before it can approve any future long-term water projects for Iqaluit, Ghosh said.

In April, the federal government announced it will be spend $214 million to build a new water reservoir in Iqaluit to solve the city’s long-term water access issues.

The project requires a weir, which is a small dam, to be installed in order to measure water data and flow in Unnamed Lake, including the water quality and rainfall cycle.

The contract, awarded to Tetra Tech Canada Inc., to design the weir is worth $117,000. Based on that design, a tender will be issued later for construction.

Data collection for water at Unnamed Lake has not been a regular occurrence, so having this weir will help collect the information needed to present to the water board, Ghosh said.

“I’m hoping that in one year we can collect all that data … and present it with our applications,” he said.

The two design proposals submitted were from Tetra Tech and WSP Canada Inc.

Tetra Tech was selected as it was the only company of the two to pass the city’s technical score on the proposal.

Funding for the design will come from the 2023 municipal budget and be funded under the disaster mitigation adaptation fund, chief administrative officer Amy Elgersma said.

“The funds are there,” she said.