Big repairs slated for Greenbrook, Mannheim water facilities

The water treatment plant on Greenbrook Drive in Kitchener is seen on Tuesday, Jan. 13, 2015. (Brian Dunseith / CTV Kitchener)

About $1.2 million will be spent to get two facilities in Waterloo Region’s water network back to normal.

The bulk of that money – $800,000 or so – will go to the water treatment plant on Greenbrook Drive in Kitchener.

A worker delivering chemicals to that facility last spring mixed up two chemicals, prompting an explosion.

Initial concerns the facility may have to be demolished were unfounded, but it has been offline ever since the explosion.

Greenbrook – which normally carries about five per cent of the region’s water supply—has undergone roof repairs, however more work is needed before it can come back into service.

The region hopes to have the plant back up and running by this summer.

In an effort to prevent similar incidents, anyone delivering chemicals to region facilities must now be escorted by a regional employee.

Some pipes will also be reinstalled in a different size, so as not to connect to pipes carrying other chemicals, and others will be locked.

Work is also planned for the Mannheim water reservoir, the largest source of the region’s water supply.

A crack in one of the pipes at the reservoir is causing a leak of an estimated 35 cubic metres of water per day – about as much as is needed to fill an average swimming pool.

Installing a bypass and fixing that leak is estimated to cost $400,000.