currently supplies water to about 80 homes totalling around 240 people. “We deserve clean drinking water, water that you can take from the tap and drink.” TIME FOR CHANGE In the summer of 2021, it became clear that the community’s current well was approaching the end of its life, and the community was at risk of losing their water supply at any given time. Coinciding with the well issues was a serious shortage of reservoir capacity which hindered Okanagan Indian Band’s ability to provide adequate fire protection for the community. “All of these issues created a rush to find a fast solution to our problem, which in turn brought us to using an Integrated Project Delivery (IPD) approach,” says Vincent. The Okanagan Indian Band’s Water Systems Improvement Project is the first time in Canada that a First Nation community used an IPD model to complete an infrastructure project funded by Indigenous Services Canada. IPD is a collaborative approach to construction that brings all the project’s stakeholders together early to clearly establish a vision for the project and layout the plan to collaboratively achieve that vision. At the beginning of the project, the owner selects 5
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