Waterloo Region says water capacity concerns may impact proposed development projects

The Region of Waterloo admits it can’t support new developments project due to water capacity worries. CTV’s Colton Wiens reports.

The future of Waterloo Region’s water supply remains a little murky.

Until there’s a solution, they are advising a pause on proposed developments in the Mannheim Service Area, which includes most of Kitchener and Waterloo, as well as parts of Cambridge, Woolwich and Wilmot Township.

The water issue was raised in December after a review was done of the region’s supply strategy.

It was determined the Mannheim coverage area didn’t have enough water to support the community’s growth, especially as Waterloo Region’s population was expected to reach one million residents by 2051.

“Today, there’s enough water,” Mathieu Goetzke, the region’s acting CAO, said at a press conference Tuesday. “We just need to make sure that we can treat it in the appropriate volumes and fix the system as we go along.”

Waterloo Region’s system draws from 100 wells, as well as surface water from the Grand River. Groundwater makes up 75 to 80 per cent of its drinking water, while 20 to 25 per cent is taken from the Grand River.

Unlike the rest of the region, Cambridge has a water surplus, but it cannot be pumped to Mannheim because there are no existing connections between the two separate service areas.

The region’s available water supply is currently 1,455 litres per second when the system is fully operational. Demand, by comparison, is 1,356 litres per second or about 93 per cent of the total.

The region said that’s not enough of an operational resiliency. Their target is a 20 per cent buffer for when infrastructure goes offline for repairs, spills or other emergencies.

“We just have to be really, really careful,” Goetzke warned. “We need that 20 per cent to be able to fix what we need to fix and maintain every year.”

It’s also essential to support the anticipated population boom.

“The buffer helps us to continue to maintain and expand some plants. To be able to create more capacity, for example by expanding something like a water treatment plant, we actually have to take it offline temporarily. The operational resiliency buffer enables us to increase the capacity in the future.”

The region said the water issue, which has also been confirmed by a third-party source, does not mean residents are required to change their consumption habits but, instead, serve as a warning that new water sources are needed.

In the meantime, capacity concerns have started to impact proposed development projects.

Goetzke said the region’s available supply would be exceeded if all the current residential applications were approved.

“Now that we’re aware that we need to rebuild that operational resiliency piece, we would say we can’t support these applications at this time.”

Kitchener Councillor Garett Stevenson said the issue is now top of mind when council is considering new proposals. At a planning and strategic initiatives meeting on Monday, one developer was requesting a zoning amendment for three high-rise residential towers along Courtland Avenue East. Stevenson said Kitchener council received a letter from the region advising they could not support the application as the development fell within the Mannheim Service Area.

“Staff’s recommendation [was] that a final decision on this matter could be deferred to January 12th in order to understand the new additional information.”

Goetzke said the region is looking for new water capacity projects to support the growing community.

“I think this is where we need to work really collaboratively with [the cities and townships], and with the development industry, to try to understand when things are actually going to come online so we can really fine tune the work, while we work on the technical solutions to be able to build that operational resiliency buffer and then do capacity projects for the future.”