Barrie faces massive sewer plant bill

By Bob Bruton, Barrie Examiner March 1, 2013

Efforts continue to reduce the impact of a potential $100-million bill to cut phosphorous levels from Barrie’s sewage treatment plant.

After a closed-door session Feb. 25, councillors gave initial approval to a motion which withdraws the balance of the city’s appeal about the annual average concentration limit and to continue discussions with Ministry of Environment (MOE) staff in 2014 concerning changes to the annual phosphorous concentration limit in the reduction strategy at the wastewater treatment facility (WwTF).

“The limits are going to change in 2015, and that’s what we’re discussing with the MOE,” said Graeme King, Barrie’s senior project manager, environmental. “By 2015, there is sufficient capacity in the plant and its treatment processes so that we will comply.”

Council will consider final approval of this motion Monday.

While some phosphorus is necessary for a healthy lake ecosystem, too much of it increases the growth of plants and algae — which uses up the water’s oxygen and harms the fish.

Barrie’s Bradford Street sewage plant is currently approved, by the MOE, for discharges of 0.12 milligrams per litre of phosphorous into Kempenfelt Bay/Lake Simcoe. But it needs to be at 0.1 mg/l by 2015.

It could take years to implement the design and construction of the membranes that the plant now requires to maintain the lower levels. To retrofit the wastewater facility to withhold the 557 kgs per year for eight years from the lake could cost of $100 million.

“The worst-case scenario is $100 million, but we are striving right now to lower that as much as we can,” King said. “We are working with the MOE to try to reduce that $100 million. I’m fairly confident that will get done.”

“It’s not $100 million all at once. It can be rolled out over time, depending on the flows and the circumstances as time goes on. It will be a staged kind of operation,” said Bob Kahle, the city’s engineering director.

Which is a good thing for property owners, who will foot the bill through their water rates.

“We do realize the impacts and affect it does have on the water rate,” King said. “So that’s what we’re trying to do, trying to minimize that impact for everyone while still trying to keep the protection of the bay at the forefront.

“Because that’s what we’re all here for, to make sure we have a long-term relationship with our bay, keeping it in a healthy state. The ministry and us are both on the same page.

Now it’s a matter of how we go about doing it, while trying to keep the cost down.”

City officials will be meeting with the MOE next month to continue discussions about the city’s phosphorous reduction strategy.

The $100 million is what’s called an order-of-magnitude estimate, to give the city an idea what it would cost to meet the MOE standard. King said it includes the construction of the foundations, concrete tanks, pumps and piping, membranes, mechanical, electrical, instrumentation communications and associated engineering services such as pre-design, detail design, contract administration, field inspection and city staff.

“It is a starting point from which we intend to make strong efforts to reduce as much as reasonably possible,” he said.

King said the City is in the planning stages to cost-effectively implement various phosphorus reduction measures such as stormwater ponds and creek enhancements.

“With the recently expanded WwTF, the city will continue to meet the new phosphorus concentration limits in 2015 and for the next several years,” he said. “However, these large scale projects can take up to eight years to design, construct and commission.

“The decisions that the MOE will be making over the next couple of years will have a large impact on what projects the city will implement to reduce phosphorus to the bay. The city is exploring all options with the MOE so we can minimize any deviation from our plan set forth, in the city’s Environmental Study Report (2004), of not implementing WwTF membranes until future WwTF expansions as originally planned.”

So what happens to this phosphorous? King says that due to its nutrient value, the phosphorus is mixed with the biosolids and then field-applied.

The 2008 Lake Simcoe Protection Act decreased the amount of phosphorus that can flow into the lake, but the Barrie facility had already been designed seven years earlier and was being constructed.

The MOE accepted that the expected post-construction phosphorus levels at Barrie’s wastewater facility would be .12 mg/l, in accordance with the certificate of approval.

The ministry did note, however, that phosphorous allow-ance levels might change when the Lake Simcoe Protection Plan was approved.

One of the major focuses of the 2009 Lake Simcoe Protection Plan — developed after the Act to restore the health of Lake Simcoe — was the overabundance of phosphorus.

And it’s not only the wastewater facility producing the phosphorus. It also enters the lake from storm sewers, septic systems, airborne particles and agricultural run-off.