Outlook water system tampering costs estimated at $100,000, security improvements planned

The Town of Outlook’s recent water mishap is expected to cost the community around $100,000.

Kevin Trew, the town’s chief administrative officer, said that figure is just the preliminary estimate of how much the town has had to fork out after tampering involving a hatch connected to the water distribution system was discovered earlier this month. He said the costs included buying bottled water for the community, using extra electricity to drain and replace the water at the distribution system, paying overtime to staff who helped with restoration and lost water utility revenue.

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“There are a lot of costs that maybe we’ll never know, or never be able to get a good understanding, but we are tracking our costs for the Town of Outlook,” Trew explained.

“It’s very preliminary for us yet.”

Outlook declared a local state of emergency on Dec. 15 after staff discovered a hatch outside the reservoir at the town’s water distribution centre had been tampered with. As a result, all the water in the system was considered compromised.

The situation left around 3,000 people in the area just southwest of Saskatoon, including in the RM of Rudy, under a water advisory for more than a week until it was lifted on Dec. 23.

Trew said the town is already learning lessons from the incident and has planned security improvements, including adding cameras and secondary security measures like fencing to better protect the water system.

“The amount of security we have on that hatch, compared to what the implications are for when it is compromised, maybe doesn’t fit,” Trew explained.

Trew said the town was already planning to install cameras in the area, and the recent incident confirmed just how badly the extra security measures are needed.

“Definitely did some learning there,” Trew said. “We definitely have some ability to do better, and we will.”

While Trew said additional security measures wouldn’t have necessarily prevented the tampering, they might have helped.

“We don’t know what brought whoever it was to compromise our system. However, had there been a secondary piece of security there, perhaps they wouldn’t have been able to breach the security,” he said.

“A lot of people have suggested that we need security cameras. Security cameras would only be good if they were a deterrent. However, had a security camera caught he person opening the hatch, the distribution system would still have been compromised.”

Trew said he believes other municipalities in Saskatchewan should also take the lessons learned in Outlook to heart, and said extra security measures could become a requirement in the future.

“We are having conversations with the Water Security Agency about the possibility of a requirement for secondary security under your permit to operate water work,” he said.

“We are issued a permit to operate a water work through the Water Security Agency, and we meet all the minimum guidelines and requirements for that, so we are just stating maybe guidelines, requirements need to be a little more strict regarding security over this, because we don’t want to see this happen to somebody else.”

To help residents cover the costs of buying bottled water, and for the inconvenience and stress the situation may have caused, Trew said Outlook’s town council decided to give a credit of $40 per water hookup for residential customers and $16 per sewer hookup at its Dec. 23 council meeting.

“It’s a very minimal amount of money that we can give for credit to our utility bills, but we are hopeful that we’re able to get that back in the future,” he said.

Reflecting on the entire situation, Trew said he’s proud of how everybody in the community worked together, though he noted that the incident also reinforced the importance of good communication.

“When you try to reach out and try to help and show people that you are in it, they give you that grace in return. So that’s something we will probably do going forward – try to make sure that we’re very mindful of the public and of showing that we are also human, and that we can communicate,” said Trew.

“The more communications that we do, the better. It keeps you more informed, and people appreciate that.”

–with files from 650 CKOM’s Brent Bosker