Sundre's town council recently heard from engineers that infiltration of groundwater into the town's treatment system is hogging up potential capacity for more residents.
Sundre's town council recently heard from engineers that infiltration of groundwater into the town's treatment system is hogging up potential capacity for more residents.
But even if the amount of wastewater generated is reduced by dealing with the problem of infiltration, the town will still need to upgrade its sewage treatment plant to meet the new federal and provincial quality standards for acceptable levels of phosphorous and ammonia nitrogen in the effluent discharged back into the Red Deer River, said Steven Dawe, a BSEI project engineer, during the May 16 meeting.
"Federal and provincial regulations aren't on the same page yet, so it's pretty hard for us to say what our standard needs to be in our town when both federal and provincial levels don't know what they want yet," said Coun. Paul Isaac.
That's why the engineers have been meeting with Alberta Environment to determine what sort of treatment will be required, said Kyle Easton, an associate/project engineer with BSEI.
Sundre's existing lagoon system, which is located just north of town, meets the current environmental regulations for the time being, said Dawe.
"But in your new approval, those requirements are going to change."
Going forward, the current limits will still exist, but there will also be additional restrictions on the amounts of phosphorous and ammonia nitrogen, he said.
"Same with anybody else discharging into the Red Deer River and any other place seeking new approvals, they're going to have to meet those limits also."
At the time the engineers were preparing the studies, the provincial government was negotiating with federal officials to harmonize the environmental regulations to bring them under the same guidelines as to what the treatment standards are, said Easton.
"There are slight differences when you look at both the provincial and federal — the provincial is a little stronger in one area, the federal is a little stronger in another area," he said.
A next step towards determining what is going to be required will be a final phase with Alberta Environment to discuss the engineers' findings, confirm the reports are correct and to get treatment guidelines from the provincial officials, he said.
Another next step is to look at the wastewater treatment study, "and to take a look at what we had assumed would be the treatment requirements, modify the treatment study to meet what is given to us by Alberta Environment, and then produce and harmonize the two documents together."
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