by Laura Walz [email protected] All that’s left to be determined about treating the City of Powell River’s sewage at Catalyst Paper Corporation’s mill is the money.
Armed with answers to technical questions, council voted at its September 15 meeting to proceed with joint treatment at Catalyst’s sewage treatment facility, pending a successful grant application for $7.2 million, or 100 per cent of the cost, from the UBCM (Union of BC Municipalities) Innovations fund.
Earlier in the day, consultants hired to report on a series of conditions linked to co-treatment presented their findings at the committee-of-the-whole meeting.
Paul Klopping, a principal in Callan and Brooks, Inc., a firm from Oregon in the United States, reported on the results of a bench top study that was conducted to determine if city wastewater can be combined with mill wastewater and treated by Catalyst’s secondary effluent treatment plant without causing an adverse impact on BOD (biological oxygen demand) removal. He found that under all scenarios, the final effluent produced in the study was “well below the BOD and TSS [total suspended solids] levels required by the discharge permit.”
Joanne Harkness, a water and wastewater specialist with Urban Systems Ltd. from Kamloops, made a presentation about a health study that examined whether co-treatment would risk the health and safety of employees at the mill due to pathogens which are present in human sewage. She reported that the addition of sewage for co-treatment will not result in the development of a health concern which is not manageable through standard operational practices. Harkness also said there was no evidence that sewage workers were at any greater risk than the general population. “There’s no recommendation that you should pre-disinfect your sewage for health reasons,” she said. “There’s nothing that’s indicating that you would need to disinfect to protect people’s health.”
Al Gibb, an engineering consultant with Opus DaytonKnight Consultants Ltd., reported on a feasibility study to determine the merit of using different pump stations at the mill than the one that has been identified. Pump station C is at a lower elevation, Gibb said, but it’s quite a bit farther away from the Townsite plant. “Long story short, there really is no cost saving to be realized by going that way, because the pipe has to be so much longer.”
Gibb also noted that the proposed design calls for a pump station and force main to pump pre-treated sewage to pump station H, estimated to cost $1.7 million. “If you do build a consolidated treatment plant at that location in Townsite, that pump station doesn’t need to be abandoned,” he said. “That can be converted for use as an outfall pumping station.”
Gibb added that that information should be passed along to support the funding application.
Another outstanding issue council dealt with was whether the existing Westview wastewater treatment plant could be retrofitted with new technology that would improve its operations.
Richard Stogre, the city’s manager of engineering services, reported that staff had contacted both GE Water and Koch Membrane Systems, Inc., but both companies said they were too busy to travel to Powell River at this time.
Stogre also said he has been uncomfortable with the request to have the companies look at resurrecting the plant. A review was done a number of years ago, he added, and staff, consultants and the LWMP (liquid waste management plan) committee all agreed it was not financially prudent to try to retrofit the plant or look at putting a consolidated plant there.
In stage one of the LWMP, council had made a decision that there would be a consolidated plant and the Westview plant would be phased out. “There are other issues down at Westview besides the capacity,” Gibb said. “Assuming you could put in a new membrane technology in the same tanks that would increase the capacity of the flow through from the membrane portion of the plant, there are a lot of other problems down there that would have to be solved to make that plant suitable for your long-term needs.”
The pretreatment works and grit removal are not effective and there are hydraulic problems with flow monitoring.
The membrane filters are in the original tanks that are close to 40 years old, Gibb also said, and there are cracks in them.
The membrane process produces high quality effluent that is suitable for water reuse, Gibb explained. “If you’re putting water out into the [Strait of Georgia], you’re not required to treat it to that level. The higher level you go to, the more your costs go up.”
Stan Westby, the city’s chief administrative officer, said Lidstone and Company, a legal firm, is ready to prepare a service agreement for joint treatment when council makes a decision. As well, Donald Lidstone has provided a legal opinion in which he states that elector assent is not required.
The only other outstanding issue was purchasing land surrounding the existing Townsite sewage treatment plant from PRSC Limited Partnership, which would be used for pretreatment and eventually for a stand-alone consolidated plant.
Councillor David Formosa said there is a “willing buyer and a willing seller.” He also said there was no point in starting negotiations for a service agreement until the city knows if its grant application is successful. “Now the ball is in the government’s court,” said Formosa. “We’ve served the ball.”
Westby said he has not been able to find out when a funding announcement might be made, but he pointed out other announcements in the past had been made at the UBCM convention, which takes place from September 26 to 30 in Vancouver.
Plant woes
In 1997, the City of Powell River entered into a $4.95 million design-build contract with Hill Murray and Associates, a company from Victoria, for what was considered a “state-of-the-art” wastewater treatment plant. The cost quickly escalated to $6.3 million, the plant was never able to consistently meet provincial permit requirements and three different reports outlined the plant’s deficiencies, which included problems with the grit removal and handling system; the capacity of the membrane system; odour control; and structural, electrical and mechanical deficiencies. A completion schedule agreed to by Hill Murray and the city identified 35 outstanding issues and deficiencies. Several of those issues were never resolved and both Hill Murray and the city launched legal actions. They eventually settled the contract in 2000.
Sid Allman, sanitary sewer supervisor at the Westview plant, said the best solution for the city is a consolidated plant in the Townsite. “It’s very disheartening to find out that council is continuing to try to move forward, after the effort the crew has put in to make this plant run where it’s at right now,” he said. “It might not be the best that it can be, but with what we’ve got to work with, it’s the best we can do.”
Allman said he’s concerned because of Catalyst’s financial position. “If the mill goes down, what is the backup plan?” he asked. “Let’s see it in writing.”
Allman noted that he is aware that some Townsite residents oppose the idea of a consolidated plant there, but he lives just above the existing Townsite plant and he believes it is the best location.
