Potable water supply for the entire City of Kamloops had always relied on a single raw water supply intake located in the South Thompson River. The City was extremely concerned that they were vulnerable to a city-wide loss of water supply in the event of a naturally occurring or accidental contamination of the South Thompson River.

To alleviate this concern, the North Thompson Emergency Water Intake (NTEWI) was planned and constructed.  The project consists of a wedge-style raw inlet structure, constructed in the North Thompson River, a 14m deep concrete wet well, vertical turbine supply pumps, disinfection system, and above-ground pumphouse building. The system will remain on active standby for perhaps years at a time, and then in the event of an unplanned or emergency shutdown of their main South Thompson intake the NTEWI is activated within a few hours.

Some of the NTEWI design challenges included:

• Integrating the facility seamlessly into an existing residential neighbourhood;
• Mitigating the impacts of in-river works required to build the 14m deep reinforced concrete inlet structure;
• Providing a facility that would operate during a major seismic event, and extreme river levels;
• Designing the facility to accommodate expansion to full scale treatment in the future; and
• Any fish drawn into the intake had be returned unharmed to the river.

WSP was retained to provide the engineering services including civil, structural, geotechnical, architectural, building services, and contract administration for this critical infrastructure.

The project was commissioned in Fall 2018 for a total cost of approximately $9,000,000.