Long-term wastewater planning underway at CVRD

Long-term wastewater planning underway at CVRD

by | Nov 8, 2018

Critical long-term wastewater infrastructure questions are being asked at the CVRD, among them: Should sewer pipes come out of the K’omoks Estuary? What level of treatment do we want, and how will we meet the long-term growth of the Comox Valley? And, should we be planning to recover our wastewater resource?

 

This article was updated Nov. 9

Just over a year ago, the Comox Valley Regional District stepped back from plans to patch the existing sewer service, which serves only Courtenay and Comox, and take time to consider how best to meet the long-term needs of a growing Comox Valley population.

That process got underway this summer with public consultations that have included in-person meetings, an online survey and two open houses held this week at the treatment plant.

Planning is focused on three main areas:

First, how best to collect and convey wastewater to the Comox Valley Water Pollution Control Centre on Brent Road, near Point Holmes.

The main pipe carrying sewage from the Courtenay #1 pump station next to Kus-kus-sum site on Comox Road, currently runs through the K’omoks Estuary and Comox Harbor, under Goose Spit and along the beach below the Willemar Bluffs before turning inland a short distance to the Brent Road plant.

CVRD engineers and an Public Advisory Committee will consider other options for moving wastewater to the treatment plant, including overland routes that would reduce risk to the K’omoks Estuary. The committee includes eight public members, plus three elected officials and representatives from industry and stewardship sectors.

Lyle Deines, a CVRD treatment plant employee, explains how the laboratory tests for such things as aerobic bacteria that degrade pollutants and the cleanliness of the discharged effluent

Second, what level of treatment should be provided at the treatment plant now, and a long-term plan for meeting both evolving land-use planning standards and the needs of geographical areas beyond the boundaries of Courtenay and Comox.

The existing plant meets or exceeds all provincial and federal standards, but does not provide tertiary level treatment. It doesn’t directly treat for nitrogen, pharmaceuticals or heavy metals.

Nor does it treat wastewater to a standard that can be safely used for agricultural irrigation, golf courses or other non-potable uses, such as groundwater reinjection.

Some communities around North America and elsewhere already treat wastewater to a level that it is directly re-introduced into their drinking water systems.

FURTHER READING: Make your voice heard through the CVRD online survey, see who’s on the Public Advisory Committee and other information

Third, how to incorporate resource recovery options, and its cost, into this long-term planning process.

For example, if upgrades to the treatment plant produced effluent safe for agricultural uses and a new, overland conveyance route was chosen, a new pipe carrying the highly cleaned wastewater could be laid at the same time back to the Courtenay #1 pump station.

Plant employee Colin Packham, in the top photo, shows the new odour control lids on the clarifier tanks, as Area B Director-Elect Arzeena Hamir listens; and, above, center, shows the centrifuges that take the water out of the sludge

Interesting wastewater facts

During this week’s open houses, employees of the treatment plant toured dozens of citizens through the facility. Here’s a random collection of facts and observations from one of those tours.

— The CVRD spent about $2 million retrofitting the plant to mitigate the odour problems that have plagued nearby residents for decades. Permanent covers over the primary clarifiers and a high-tech activated carbon polisher have reduced odours.

But when major community events, such as MusicFest, occur and the volume of waste dumped into the system via septic pumping trucks, the density of the sewage can create a spike in odours. For that reason, these volumes are held and processed during the nighttime when regular residential flows have diminished.

–In the summer months, it takes about 24 hours for sewage to travel from the Courtenay #1 pump station to the treatment plant. But in the winter, when rain water infiltrates the sewer lines, it flushes through much faster, in about 8 hours.

— It takes about one day for wastewater entering the treatment plant to exit to the Point Holmes outfall.

— Effluent travels via gravity only from the treatment plant to the outfall, which is located at the sharp curve in Lazo Road up the Point Holmes hill. The outfall extends 3 km at a 45-degree angle into the Strait of Georgia and terminates at a depth of 60 metres.

— The treatment plant was designed in 1983 and has a permitted maximum daily discharge of 18,000 cubic meters of wastewater per day, and averages about 14,000 cubic meters. The daily average goes down to about 12,000 cubic meters in the summer. In the mid-2000s, the plant started to exceed its maximum daily discharge during peak wet weather events, and now exceed the permitted discharge approximately 30 times per year. Those numbers are reported to the Ministry of Environment. 

Wastewater coming into the plant, left, and the discharged effluent on the right

But in the winter, the volume of wastewater flowing through the plant reaches more than 40,000 cubic meters per day. The increase, which is more than three times the summer average, is due to rain water from winter storms infiltrating the system.

— The treatment plant has a laboratory where testing occurs daily for the quality of effluent leaving the plant, the heaviness of solids entering and the population of aerobic bacteria present during the aeration process that degrade the pollutants for their growth and reproduction.

— The first step in treatment process screens out all the rags, paper, plastic and metals that have been flushed into the sewage pipes. The plant removes a full dumpster load every week.

— Not all solids are removed from the wastewater before it’s discharged into the Strait of Georgia, but most of it. About 3,000 kg of solids enter the plant every day. The discharged effluent contains about 75 kg per day.

 

Public panel will help guide new sewerage plan

Public panel will help guide new sewerage plan

by | May 7, 2018

The new Sewer Conveyance Planning Process will include public and technical panels to be formed this summer; plus, the treatment plant gets upgrade to eliminate over-capacity at peak periods

 

When the Courtenay-Comox Sewer Commission put a hold last October on its plans to build a new pump station in Croteau Beach, it signaled the beginning of a new and lengthy process to examine a long list of better options for re-routing wastewater from the two municipalities.

That project — now know as the Sewer Conveyance Planning Process — gets underway in earnest next month.

Comox Valley Regional District staff will present the sewer commission in June with proposed terms of reference for the public and technical advisory panels that will help guide the process. They will also seek authority to hire a technical consultant and will outline plans to engage the public in a series of public events.

Kris La Rose, the senior manager of water/wastewater services for the CVRD, believes the process can still meet the original deadline of reporting back to the sewage commission in January 2019. But he acknowledges that unforeseen issues could cause some delay.

At the same time, he said, the first phase of a long-term project is underway to upgrade the Brent Road treatment plant.

The main sewer pipe carrying sewage and stormwater from Courtenay, Comox and K’omoks First Nations runs along the K’omoks Estuary, through Comox Bay and around the Willemar Bluffs to the Brent Road treatment plant. From there it discharges into the Strait of George via an outfall off Cape Lazo.

FURTHER READING: Beech Street shelved; betters solutions under review

The sewage commission was originally motivated to move quickly because it believed the pipe running along the base of Willemar Bluffs was in imminent danger of being exposed and damaged during winter storms, which could cause it to leak. And a plan, which critics characterized as “hasty,” was developed to build a pump station on Beech Street in the Croteau Beach neighborhood.

But further study of the condition of the pipe confirmed its relatively good condition, and an inexpensive solution was found to cover the pipe safely for many more years. That removed the urgency of the sewer commission’s plan.

With time to consider more forward-thinking options and climate change issues, and the emergence of three serious red flags that made a new pump station in Croteau Beach look less desirable, CVRD staff recommended taking another year to study other options for moving Courtenay and Comox wastewater to the treatment plant.

La Rose said the public and technical advisory committees will assist in reviewing the long list of potential pipeline routes and narrowing them down to a short list for more intensive, technical study.

He estimated the two groups would consist of almost 30 members.

Asked by Decafnation if the new sewerage plan would take a broader view and envision a Comox Valley-wide sewerage system enjoyed and paid for by more than the residents of Courtenay and Comox, La Rose said the current planning process is focused on the existing service area. But it’s possible the sewage commission could decide otherwise.

He specifically mentioned the South Courtenay areas of Royston and Union Bay, which voted down a South Sewer Plan last year because it was too expensive. He said adding them into the existing system would only increase the volume of wastewater flows by roughly 5 percent.

If the proposed housing developments at Kensington Properties in Union Bay and the nearby K’omoks First Nation property proceed, La Rose said there might be sufficient economies of scale to bring them (roughly Area A of the regional district) into the Courtenay-Comox system.

But any decision to extend the Courtenay-Comox sewerage system rests with the sewage commission.

FURTHER READING: Watch this page for new about the public advisory committee

Further expansion of the Courtenay-Comox system throughout the Comox Valley is unlikely. The Village of Cumberland has plans to upgrade its own sewerage system, and the Miracle Beach/Saratoga area would require too many miles of expensive pipelines.

Treatment plant to expand

Concurrent with the Sewer Conveyance Planning Process, La Rose is also managing a multi-phase, 50-year project that will eventually double the capacity of the Brent Road sewage treatment plant.

During peak times in the late fall of every year — when the tides are the highest and stormwater runoff hits its peak — the system exceeds capacity at the outfall. The December king tides can vary by 15 feet to 17 feet.

To solve that problem, La Rose said the CVRD will increase the treatment plant’s storage capacity by adding a new and separate equalization tank. The upgrade will enable the plant to store twice as much wastewater during peak flows and release it to the outfall when tides subside.

And new odor control technology is currently being installed that could resolve problems that have plagued neighboring residents since the plant was originally built in the 1980s.