Infrastructure Upgrades and New Municipal Customers Top SaskWater’s 2017-18 Highlights

In 2017-18, SaskWater renewed its commitment to existing customers through important system upgrades, while continuing to grow its customer base and expand services.

SaskWater’s 2017-18 annual report, which was tabled today, outlines the corporation’s financial success throughout the year and demonstrates how SaskWater is living up to the report’s title, ‘Your Partner in Water.’

“This past year, SaskWater has built new relationships and delivered crucial infrastructure upgrades,” Minister Responsible for SaskWater Bronwyn Eyre said.  “It has continued to supply safe, reliable and sustainable water and wastewater services in a fiscally responsible manner and to make customer and community connections that will ensure continued growth and success as a provincial Crown corporation.”

SaskWater reported earnings of $8.2 million for the year ending March 31, 2018.  Among the top achievements of 2017-18 is SaskWater’s installation of a 30 kilometres (km) pipeline outside Melville.  The pipeline, along with two new wells and a well control building, were awarded a $10.2 million grant from the Clean Water and Wastewater Fund (CWWF).  Work is now proceeding on Melville’s new water treatment plant, which is expected to be completed by the end of 2019.

SaskWater also significantly improved the Elbow regional water supply system in 2017-18 with all-new infrastructure to deliver water to the water treatment plant.  The new intake, pump station and pipeline received $1.46 million in CWWF support.

During 2017-18, customer growth continued thanks in part, to an agreement with the Town of Kindersley which saw SaskWater assume operation of the community-owned water treatment plant, water tower, pump station and reservoir.

In addition, the Town of Southey contracted SaskWater to provide continuous 24-hour monitoring of its water treatment plant and wastewater lift station through its ROAM remote monitoring service.

Highlights of SaskWater’s activities in 2017-18 also included:

• Paying a dividend of $2.0 million to the province.
• Delivering 43.6 billion litres of potable and non-potable water.
• Project-managing 14 grant-funded infrastructure upgrade initiatives in northern Saskatchewan on behalf of the Ministry of Government Relations and the Northern Municipal Trust Account.
• Marking the 40th year of SaskWater’s First Nations Water and Wastewater Operator training program.
• Installing 75 solar panels at the Wakaw-Humboldt water treatment plant as another important step to reduce the corporation’s greenhouse gas emissions.

SaskWater owns nine water treatment plants, three wastewater facilities, 140 kilometres of canal and 964 kilometres of pipeline.

SaskWater's annual report is available online at www.saskwater.com.

Backgrounder

• The Saskatchewan Water Corporation (SaskWater) is Saskatchewan’s commercial Crown water utility, helping communities, First Nations and industry gain access to safe, reliable and sustainable water and wastewater services.  
• SaskWater provides professional water and wastewater services to 65 communities, nine rural municipalities, 81 rural pipeline groups, 17 industrial and 242 commercial and domestic end user customers. SaskWater’s services directly and indirectly reach approximately 102,000 people in Saskatchewan.  
• The corporation owns nine water treatment plants, three wastewater facilities, 140 kilometres of canal and 964 kilometres of pipeline. SaskWater also owns or leases 40 booster and pump stations.  
• SaskWater’s core lines of business are: potable water supply, non-potable water supply, wastewater treatment and management, certified operation and maintenance (COM), project management, water and wastewater training, remote monitoring, and leak detection audits.  
• In 2017-18, SaskWater:
  • Delivered 7.5 billion litres of high quality drinking water
  • Delivered 36.1 billion litres of non-potable water
  • Received and treated 1.1 billion litres of wastewater  
• Partnering with TransGas (a subsidiary of SaskEnergy), SaskWater uses a Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) system to remotely monitor 55 SaskWater and customer owned facilities across the province 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. 

For more information, contact:

Suzanne Boyer
SaskWater
Moose Jaw
Phone: 306-690-8790
Email: suzanne.boyer@saskwater.com