The Pembina Valley Water Co-op is moving ahead on another upgrade of its Stephenfield water treatment plant.

An expansion of the facility was completed back in 2017, but a second upgrade is now necessary in order to provide the town of Carman with all of its water needs in the near future.

Carman is in the process of building a new 3,000 cubic metre reservoir which the Water Co-op will connect to in order to provide 100 percent of Carman's treated water.

Co-op CEO Greg Archibald says, however, in order to provide Carman with water, an upgrade of their Stephenfield plant needs to be done first.

"We'll take the Stephenfield plant from 40 litres per second to 60 litres per second in order to supply the water to Carman. We have a long delivery on the new membrane technology that allows you to upgrade, so we'll begin ordering the equipment soon; it will be here by June with a completed upgrade by the end of August 2020."

Engineering work is just getting started on the $4.75 million project.

The Stephenfield plant upgrade is just one of a number of large projects that the PVWC is working on.

It is currently in the process of installing a water pipeline from its Morris treatment plant to the community of St. Jean and is planning for a major expansion of its water reservoir at Letellier.