Meaford council received some good news during their July 21 meeting after a report from staff that suggests that the need for a costly expansion to the municipal wastewater treatment plant could be avoided, in the short term at least.
Council has been aware for a number of years that the municipal wastewater treatment plant was operating near its capacity, and that capacity issue has been a topic of discussion and concern with each new development proposal that would require connection to the wastewater system.
Between 2017 and 2020, the wastewater treatment plant was operating between 71.8 – 80.4 percent of capacity, leaving little room for new connections in a growing community. The most recent projection of the cost for the expansion is roughly $120 million, a costly expansion for a system currently used by just a few thousand customers.
“The current wastewater Environmental Compliance Approval (ECA) 036-AZFPV6 states that the capacity at the plant is 3910 m3/day. Using the average daily flows compared to the rated capacity helps determine the percentage of the plant. There is concern when daily flows reach the 80% as that leaves a very small margin of the plant’s usefulness. When expecting development and the capacity is reaching 80% it is time to expand or should have already started an expansion,” noted the report from staff.
Last week council was told that some recent initiatives have resulted in significantly decreased daily flows through the treatment plant that could help to delay an expansion of the plant by several years.
“Meaford’s Wastewater Treatment Plant has operated near its design capacity of 3,910 m3/ day, prompting a review of future expansion plans. Average daily flows have decreased from 80.4% to 52%, we believe largely due to successful inflow and infiltration reduction efforts such as sewer relining,” Emily Howard, Manager Environmental Services, told council during their July 21 meeting. “The Municipality has identified potential projects and initiatives to help reduce Inflow and Infiltration. Some of the identified projects are sewer lining and sump pump disconnection. The biggest factor to reducing infiltration that has seemed to help has been sewer relining. The process of relining sewers is to help extend the useful life of the existing sanitary sewer infrastructure by using technology and equipment that can essentially put a brand-new lining on the interior of the pipes, helping to keep infiltration from entering the cracks or holes it was previously.”
The sewer relining project has cost the municipality roughly $337,000 over two years in 2023 and 2024.
“Staff are currently reviewing CCTV from the last five years to develop another multi-year lining schedule to continue to reduce Inflow and Infiltration, along with working with other departments to work towards a sump pump disconnection program,” staff advised council in their report.
As expected, council was relieved to hear the good news.
“I am just absolutely pleased after reading this report because I think all of us on council were just worried and worried and worried when we heard the millions and millions of dollars that were going to be required, for about five and a half thousand people to support, do this, to upgrade, it was so out of whack,” noted Councillor Tony Bell. “This puts us back in a position where we can definitely move forward.”
While council was thrilled with the news in the report, some are taking a cautious approach when looking to the future.
“I don’t want to be the buzz-kill here,” said Councillor Steve Bartley, “but I don’t think we should take our foot off the gas.”
Bartley suggested that while the change in flows at the wastewater treatment plant was great news, the municipality should still be planning for an eventual need to expand the wastewater treatment plant.
The Manager Environmental Services told council that, in the fourth quarter of this year, staff is planning to bring to council an updated plan for the future needs of the wastewater treatment plant.
“Like Councillor Bartley said, we can’t take our foot off the gas, we still need to be planning for something, but I think we have time to put money away,” Howard told council.
