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Accessible washroom trailers to be added to Kimberley’s Electrify the Mountains project

The washrooms are mobile and could be used at other Kimberley events as well
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The accessible trailer washroom.

Last year the City of Kimberley on behalf of the Kimberley Trail Society, the Sustainable Kimberley Society, and Kootenay Adaptive Sports, applied for a grant from B.C.’s Tourism Dependent Community Fund and received $851,422 for the Electrify the Mountains project. While the city is charge of all financial management and reporting for the project, hosting tenders and RFPs, the Kimberley Trails Society will be supporting the building of trails. They will be responsible for recommending trail building contractors, utilizing their connections in other towns with workers of this sort. Additionally they will handle all the trail standards and project planning as well as signage and maintenance.

This week at the regular meeting of Kimberley city council, a tender for a piece of the project was approved, that being the accessible trailer washrooms. The contractor will be AMS Global Inc. with a cost of $272,836.

There are three main components to the overall project, trail upgrades; accessible washrooms; and solar base camps (charging stations for e-bikes).

Initially the thought was to disperse the solar base camps through the nature trails while building new washrooms at the Nordic Centre. However, with the Nordic Club looking at different options for their building improvements, and the discovery that there were few locations in the trail network that have enough sunlight for charging solar stations, staff had to pivot to different options.

The solution was accessible washroom trailers that can be fitted with large battery packs for e-bike charging. An added bonus to this is that the trailers are mobile and can be used at a variety of events, and can even provide some power for events.

City CAO Scott Sommerville says that rather than being hooked up to a septic system or city services, the trailers have to be pumped, much like an RV.

Each of the two trailers will have two washrooms, one standard and one accessible. The batteries proposed in these trailers have a capacity of 30kwh which can provide up to 60 full e-bike charges.

With the bid coming in some $31,000 under budget the decision was made to allocate those funds for painting and adding logos to the trailers.

It is anticipated the trailers will be delivered for use this year.

READ: Kimberley City Council hears details on Electrify the Mountain project

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carolyn.grant@kimberleybulletin.com

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Carolyn Grant

About the Author: Carolyn Grant

I have been with the Kimberley Bulletin since 2001 and have enjoyed every moment of it.
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