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New sewage treatment plant coming along

On the fine spring-like day of Thursday, March 8, concrete was poured for the foundation of the new sewage treatment building.
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David Palmer and Dave McDonald supervise the concrete pour of the foundation for the new sewage water treatment building.

The new sewage treatment plant is on its way. On the fine spring-like day of Thursday, March 8, concrete was poured for the foundation of the new treatment building.

Down past the three sewage lagoons, the construction site is tucked away out of sight.

Fortunately, the project was scheduled for a day that saw the men pour 24 cubic metres of concrete in the sunshine. Simon Bamber, the ? for the project, demonstrated how to test the “slump” of the mix, and showed off the three samples that will be tested for the concrete’s solidity. One of the samples will be crushed under pressure in a week, and another in four weeks, to ensure the foundation is strong enough to support the new water treatment plant.

The new facility will employ state-of-the-art UV and dissolved air flotation (DAF) treatments of the water, in addition to sand filtration.

“The sand filtration will come later if required to polish the water up a bit more,” Engineer Trevor Shephard told the Arrow Lakes News, “The water will get UV treated if going to the lake, since it’s illegal to dump chlorinated water into a lake.”

The new design has been created to handle problems a previous one wasn’t equipped to deal with.

“This system is designed to handle algae,” Shephard said, “The sand filter unit that we first planned did not handle algae so we had to change our plans.”

Now that the foundation has been poured, the next step is the construction of the building for the new water treatment equipment. Saving money and going green have been major drivers of the project.

“We are building a 45 foot (14 metres) by 30 foot (9 metres) building to house the new equipment,” he detailed, “The Village is being green and recycling materials by using a refurbished DAF from the U.S.A. and reusing a 5,000 litre plastic tank that was used during the arena construction. The gravel, fill, and concrete are all local, with much labour used locally.”

More pieces of the project are on the way, including the pump that will get the treated water moving back into town and into the lake.

“We have a pump system ordered, and 1,800 metres of pipe installed back into town to pump the water for irrigating fields and green spaces,” said Shephard, “The irrigation water must also be chlorinated as per the Municipal Sewage Regulation (MSR)  regulations. When our irrigation storage pond is full, the same clean water will flow to the lake, with no chlorine added.”

Shephard spends a lot of time mulling over the intricacies of waste water and how to make a municipal system run, but fortunately, he likes it.

“Yep, wastewater treatment is interesting, from a biological and mechanical perspective. If you like that sort of thing,” he commented, “[It’s] not so great for social parties, unless other engineers are present!”