The Final Days of the Scotia Creek Water SystemThe Final Days of the Scotia Creek Water System
It’s not uncommon for a cold snap to result in frozen pipes that can lead to burst pipes and the ensuing damages and clean up. In November 1985, a sudden temperature drop to record lows between -22 and -24°C (reportedly -50°C with wind chill) caused pipes to freeze and burst in the Whistler Professional Building, the Blackcomb Lodge, and the Keg Restaurant, as well as various houses and condos. This cold snap also froze a pipe on the other side of the valley, specifically the 2 inch pipe that serviced the Scotia Creek Water System.
Until the late 1960s, some residents of Alta Lake Road had running water only in the summer, when they put in a temporary aboveground line from Scotia Creek, while others got their water from an aboveground line that the PGE had installed to service the railway townsite. As skiing began to develop on Whistler Mountain, Dick Fairhurst and Andy Petersen began work on an underground line to service houses along Alta Lake. With the help of other members of Scotia Creek Water Improvements Society (mostly when they were up on the weekends) and a digger from the Valleaus, they dug a trench, blasted through rocks, laid a 2 inch pipe (residents decided the more standard 4 inch pipe would be too expensive), and filled it all back in. Looking back on the water system, Andy recalled “It was a big achievement, especially on next to no money.” For the next eighteen years, as Whistler Mountain grew, the Resort Municipality of Whistler was founded, and Blackcomb Mountain opened, this pipe supplied water to about 40 houses along the lake.
On November 27, 1985, the waterline froze, leaving these 40 houses without water. At first it was unclear whether the problem was that the watersource, a reservoir upstream of the intake on Scotia Creek, was frozen solid or if it was the main pipe running underneath Alta Lake Road. By mid-December, it was determined that parts of the line were frozen. Alta Lake Road residents were bringing water over from the town centre and relying on friends and the recently-opened KOA campground for showers and laundry, with Jacquie Pope sending “a bathtub full” of roses to those helping out through the Whistler Question’s “Bricks & Roses.” The Whistler Youth Hostel (formerly Cypress Lodge) had installed a pump in Alta Lake and were using it for drinking water. Roger Stacey, Alta Lake Road resident and president of the Scotia Creek Water Improvements Society, told the paper that this freeze “could be the end of the whole system.”
This prediction led to increased talk of the municipality assuming responsibility for providing water to the area. After the RMOW was created in 1975, the municipality had assumed responsibility for water systems in other pre-existing neighbourhoods, such as Alpine Meadows, and a water study released in the early 1980s suggested building a municipal water system that would service the Alta Lake Road area and beyond, but the timing suggested for that project was 1992.
By the end of January 1986, houses between the Youth Hostel and Chaplainville were expected to be without water for the foreseeable future as the reservoir had thawed but there was still no water flowing through the pipe. Finally, in April 1986, five months after the pipe froze, the Scotia Creek Water System had water running through it again. However, the line was badly damaged, working at only half pressure and needing almost constant repairs as cracks caused water to bubble up out of the ground.
In May, Stacey appealed for municipal support to pay for the new water line and when the 1986 budget was approved it included $1,985,000 for “water system extension.” On June 2, council voted in favour of paying half of the $200,000 cost of a new water line for Alta Lake Road. Property owners were given the option to finance the cost of their portion over a 25-year period and were notified that a “water improvement district” was going to be created in order to levy the taxes to pay for the system.
Construction of the water supply at Twenty-One Mile Creek, which replaced the Whistler Creek water system as the municipality’s primary water system, began over the summer and was completed by the end of the year. Houses along Alta Lake Road were once again connected to an operational water system, though it would be a few more years before other neighbourhoods such as Emerald Estates were brought onto a municipal system.
