Lift station replacements

Times Reporter  

 

The Westmount lift station has been in operation since the 1970s and is in desperate need of repairs. EPCOR representatives and Director of Operations and Engineering for the town, Jesse Parker, spoke to town council on July 16 about the project. 

A lift station is usually the term used in reference to sewage. Because sewage runs downhill, when it gets to a low point and can’t go down anymore, it is lifted and then will run downhill again. 

“You don’t want it under pressure because if you lose a pipe you don’t want sewage spraying everywhere, so you generally let gravity do the work … you have to lift it to elevations to do that,” said Dillan Buckingham, project manager for EPCOR. 

The Westmount lift station services approximately 40 homes and is quickly reaching the end of its life. A lift station consultant came to Strathmore to assess the current station and found many issues. 

The most serious concerns are the lid is degraded to the point it is recommended that no one stand on it, which has to be done to access areas of the lift station.

Because it is partially above ground there is a ladder to climb up, which is corroded to the point of falling apart. All of the electrical is no longer serviceable, with many parts unavailable if anything were to fail.  

The scope of the project is to replace the lid, ladders and guide rails, PLC, the control panel, starters and SCADA communications.

There will also be the addition of an access platform inside the wet well for valve maintenance, new piping and valves, safety rails on top of the wet well as well as an emergency bypass. Modern instrumentation will be added including level switches, a level transmitter and flow meter, and a new back-up generator. 

Last fall a capital project was created for the lift station with $477,000 dedicated to the project. The final estimates and quotes came in lower than initially thought. The final estimate for the project, including a 20 per cent contingency, comes out to $414,914.40.

Buckingham informed council that EPCOR has plans to go door-to-door to the homes affected to inform them of what’s happening. A portion of the street will be closed to allow access to the uphill manhole, but no service interruptions are expected. 

Council approved the project.