With a growing population comes a need to deal with everything that goes down the toilet.
A five-part comprehensive review of the Humboldt’s lagoon system will determine what the city’s going to have to do to deal with the sewage produced by 8,000 people.
“We’re excited because it’s a big project where we will get a lot of answers and direction forward as to where we go with our system for the long term,” said Peter Bergquist, Humboldt’s public works director.
“This whole study’s about planning for growth, as to what we have to do to accommodate the growth”
The public works director said the city is doing the review because the current lagoon is not just about to hit its treatment capacity, there’s also degradation of some of its older parts.
The oldest part, which treats the waste, dates back to 1961. Storage cells have been added over the years, with the newest dating from 2001.
“It’s a good time to decide the next steps.”
The review will cost $257,000, with $151,000 of that coming from the Federation of Canadian Municipalities’ Green Fund.
The rest of the money will come from the city. Stantec has been hired by the city as the consultant for the project.
The first part of the review examines how effluent coming from the sewage system affects the water bodies it’s going into.
“It’s important for the readers to know that we’re going to work with the Water Security Agency to achieve necessary requirements – now and going into the future – as it is going in our waterways,” Bergquist said.
This part of the review has already begun. The city has had to do some additional testing it wasn’t expecting, which has delayed its completion.
The second part, the short-term odour control study, is complete.
“We have issues with some odour when the wind blows towards Humboldt with our current lagoon, just because part of the lagoon uses an anaerobic [oxygenless] process, which creates an odour of hydrogen sulfide,” Bergquist said.
Injecting ferric sulphate into the system will reduce odours by 90 per cent.
Doing that costs the city $135,000 for a tank to store the substance plus an additional $60,000 annually.
A conceptual options review will examine the options the city will need to look into to serve populations of 8,000 and 12,000. The city’s target in the near future is 8,000.
It will look at the issues that exist as well as future expandability. Bergquist said possible options could include expanding the lagoon or building a mechanical sewage treatment plant.
A feasibility study will provide more details about the options provided by the conceptual options review. For this, council will choose which option it wants to focus on in the future.
Finally, there’s the preliminary design report, which will be used to describe how a new system will function on a high level and provide an accurate cost. With that knowledge, the city can then apply for infrastructure grants to get it built.
Bergquist said the whole review should be complete by March 2019.
The study might benefit other communities in the future as well.
“What happens is we’ll pass on our information on what we learn through this process to FCM [Federation of Canadian Municipalities] and the Green Municipal Fund,” Bergquist said.
“What we’re hoping is that information could benefit a community similar to us with a system with similar challenges.”
