The Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) held their annual conference May 31 to June 3 with Humboldt mayor Rob Muench in attendance.
As part of the conference, Muench says all the attendees got to sign up for study tours of city facilities.
With all the challenges of Humboldt’s lagoon system, Muench got a tour of the Halifax sewage treatment plant. Halifax does not have the space to use a natural system so everything is mechanically treated.
“We’re in the process of doing different research on what kind of system we need to put in at Humboldt. They had some good ideas,” says Muench.
Similar to geo-thermal energy, Halifax will also be putting in a heat capturing system on their sewage treatment as a way to heat buildings, provided that city council passes the motion. Heat is captured and compressed and then could be used to heat 10-12 20-story buildings, says Muench.
That was the point of the FCM conference was to share these ideas between Canadian communities.
For Muench, some of these ideas are possible for Humboldt on a smaller scale.
For the heat capture idea, it may not be possible city-wide but it could work for something like heating the Uniplex or the high school, he says.
“They’re doing it to try and save money instead of wasting that energy. It also helps the output of carbon. You aren’t using coal-fired electricity to heat.”
Muench was also able to take in a lot of the workshops that were going on. Every community has similar issues so getting together to share solutions was a big part of Muench going to the conference, he says. If you can talk to someone who has already solved the problem, there is benefit in that.
“It’s always nice to go out and see what other cities in the country are doing,” says Muench.
Muench, as well as the other city councillor who went to the conference, will be giving a report back to council with possible ideas that are workable for Humboldt.
Even being a couple thousand kilometres away from Humboldt, two stops became Humboldt Broncos related visits. Former Bronco Kelly Kolke invited Muench to stop by the accounting firm where he works where they presented Muench with a cheque for $26,000. Grant Thornton LLP does fundraising for charities and rallied behind Kolke and the Broncos.
Muench also got to meet the North Nova Penguins from Amherst before one of their Atlantic Cup hockey tournament games in Halifax. The team also rallied together to support the Broncos with patches on their jerseys and stickers on their helmets.
When they got the patches and stickers made, they ordered extras to sell as a fundraiser for the GoFundMe page.
“They had done this on their own. It wasn’t something that had come from the coaching staff. They basically decided to do that.”
Muench got to thank the team in person for doing that for the Broncos and even got a picture with them in full gear before they went out on the ice.
