Trio of major water projects in the pipeline for Coquitlam

Over the next 10 years, Coquitlam is set to add a few liquid assets.

The Dewdney Trunk water main – the two-kilometre main along Dewdney between Pier Drive and Lougheed Highway – is the latest project designed to slake the region’s thirst.

Slated to serve Coquitlam and Port Moody, the new pipe would replace a main built in 1950.

“I’d rather be doing this on our terms and not doing emergency repairs,” said Coun. Craig Hodge, referring to the need for critical water main repairs in Calgary this summer.

The new water main will have a diameter of 0.9 metres – double the size of the previous main.

Expected to last until 2100 or 2125, the new main is expected to deliver 6.5 times more water than the old main, according to Metro Vancouver.

The design accounts for the likelihood of increased housing density, explained Ross Richardsen, a senior engineer with Metro Vancouver.

The water main will mean some traffic snarls and detours, with Dewdney reduced to two lanes for three to five months during installation.

While there will be impacts, particularly to Barnet Highway as the main detour, city staff is comfortable with the plan, according to Coquitlam’s general manager of engineering and public works Jaime Boan.

“We feel this routing is probably the best route that could be done to minimize those impacts,” Boan said.

There are plans to limit some streets to local traffic during construction to cut down on rat running, staff stated.

As the main moves across Mariner Way, work will be confined to weekends after Friday rush hour, Richardsen explained. The job should take two to four weekends, he said.

Closer to Pier Drive, there may be the need for single-lane alternating traffic with some detours along Barnet Highway and Mariner Way.

The one-year project is expected to start in July or September 2025 and to coincide with other infrastructure projects in the city for greater efficiency, according to Richardsen.

The Robson to Guildford section of the 12-kilometre Coquitlam Water Main project is set to wrap up in 2026.

Once all sections of the Coquitlam Water Main are constructed, Metro Vancouver will return to connect the new water main to the existing drinking water system in the 2030s.

Metro Vancouver is also working on a plan that would allow for twice as much drinking water to be drawn from Coquitlam Lake.

The lake currently supplies about 370 million litres of water per day – about one-third of the drinking water needed by the region’s 2.7 million residents, according to Metro Vancouver.

The project, which includes new water intake, tunnel, and water treatment facilities, is set to move into the design phase later this year. However, construction isn’t set to get started until the late 2020s.

Each year, Coquitlam gets more than 20 million cubic metres of water from Metro Vancouver. Slightly more than half of water utility fees to go Metro Vancouver for buying water and running the regional supply system.

On average, about 80 million litres of water stream into Coquitlam each day.