Sewage Treatment Issues

Will large scale development hasten the need to upgrade out lagoon waste treatment facility?

How close are we to capacity now, and where will further large scale development put us? We think it will push the lagoon system to the edge of it's rated capacity.

If upgrades are needed, then at what cost to the taxpayer?

Waste Management Issues in Almonte

One of the BIG issues is Septage. This is largely being ignored by the council when they say "yes, we have the capacity for this large development..."

But there are 3,500 or so existing septic fields in MM - and the solids from their holding tanks (the septage) soon cannot be dumped on farmer's fields any more. So it will soon have to be treated in the existing sewage treatment facilities - somewhere.

This change is due to the Nutrient Management Act, which was implemented about May 2002 and has a five year implementation schedule, so that effective in 2007, land application of septage will be banned.

The Trow report and Council has stated that the current lagoon system CANNOT handle the existing septage in MM - thus if we are to treat all of our own waste, then we are already over the capacity of the lagoons!

BIG bucks to fix this - and this is without any further development! The alternative is to send it elsewhere for treatmetn i.e. someone else's back yard.

Sewage Lagoon Violations!

Nov. 20 2003 - There is a new TROW Engineering report on the business case for treating septage at the lagoons was tabled to council on Nov. 6th. A draft version is available:

Main report body

The report Appendices are a separate document.

Note the last appendix (lagoons COP) is missing every second page.

Oct. 21 2003 - We obtained a letter date July 29 from the Ministry of the Environment (MOE) to the town with regard to sewage lagoon violations. Doesn't sound like the MOE is very happy with the way things are going.

See the MOE letter here.

We have obtained sewage non-compliance (violations) reports from OCWA for the past 3 1/2 years (2000 to June 2003).

See the raw data here.

A MMRA member has charted the data . Really shows how close to the "edge" we are. See a summary of the data here.

The Almonte Lagoons COA (Certificate of Approval) can be seen here.

July 3, 2003

More Info on Lagoon Capacity

Trow Engineering was asked to produce an estimate of remaining sewage lagoon capacity.

Here is the report / memo.

Anywhere from 315 to 2,815 more persons can be supported on the current system. The best guess is about 1,000 persons more capacity. This is a lot less than originally reported (see this link) by the previous Director of Public Works Denis Bedard. To be honest, this appears to have caught Council and the Town planner completely by surprise.

BTW - The TROW report was deemed not acceptable as a "Reserve Capacity Calculation" for the lagoons - see the MOE letter mentioned above.

June 23, 2003

Trouble at the OK Lagoon?

At a special Public Works Committee meeting on Monday, June 23, 2003, (Meeting minutes here) presentations from John McKee, from the engineering firm of OMM Trow, and John Kingsbury, from the Ontario Clean Water Agency (OCWA), provided insights into the current operating capacity of both the Almonte Ward's water and sewage (lagoon) systems. See the Trow Engineering report on the lagoons here.

While preliminary in nature, neither presentation painted a rosy picture of the capacity of either system, with suggestions that during the summer months the supply of water just meets demand, and that the sewage lagoons are at or nearing capacity.

Septic Fields

The original (currently approved) White Tail Ridge development has 60 lots serviced by private septic fields. All septic fields produce solids wastes (septage) that has to be pumped from the holding tank and treated in a sewage treatment facility. See the discussion above.

Communal Septic Systems

A noted problem of this type of service is once built by the developer, it is handed over to the municipality for management. Because it is a small , remote system, it is generally costly to maintain. This cost is covered by all taxpayers - i.e. we all pay for the developments waste disposal through our taxes.

Small Bore Sewage Pipe

A CMHC case study (biased?) for Wardsville Ontario can be seen here:

Plasma Arc Incineration

For more information on this issue in Almonte, please see the following:

Other Treatment Methods