Rosebud wastewater pilot awaits county approval

By Laureen F. Guenther Times Contributor

Symbiotic EnviroTek completed an algae-based wastewater treatment pilot project in Rosebud, 2018 to early 2019.
On July 2, 2019, Symbiotic presented the pilot results to Wheatland County council, and Elizabeth Huculak, Symbiotic’s vice-president of products and operations, said council’s response to the presentation seemed very positive. Now Symbiotic awaits council’s decision.
Many of the challenges encountered by the pilot project served to demonstrate the project’s resiliency, said Huculak. Other challenges gave opportunity for further problem solving, leading to successful results.
To start with, said Huculak, because of funding delays, the pilot started about four months later than hoped, so it was operating through December and January, the coldest months of the year.
The equipment performed very well during an “incredible cold winter spell.” They were able to maintain heat in the system during a power outage. And the equipment was unaffected by a flood in April.
However, in May or June, they noticed the accumulation of an unexpected substance in the discharge water.
“Wheatland County had authorized a septic tank supplement to be added (to the Rosebud wastewater),” Huculak said. “That supplement was mostly carbon and kind of offset the balance of what we were working with.”
It took time to address that issue.
“We ended up suspending the Rosebud part of the program in favour of chipping some wastewater from Gleichen, which was obviously not impacted by that additive,” she said. “We were able to run another additional 11 cycles, to try to confirm what exactly was going on. And our results for the Gleichen wastewater were excellent, and as expected. So we then finished off the additional runs for the Rosebud wastewater using a prefiltration system.”
That strategy was somewhat effective in dealing with the impact of the additive, said Huculak.
“The conclusion generally for the pilot was that we knocked it out of the park, in terms of the regulatory requirements for the cBODs (carbonaceous biochemical oxygen demand), TSS (total suspended solids) and the fecal coliform,” she said. “That was better than any other system, once we got to near zero on each one of those (levels), which is what was required.”
Symbiotic wasn’t as pleased about the depletion of the nitrogen and phosphorus levels, which were depleted to 60 to 80 per cent but not as low as they’d hoped.
They now believe they have a solution for that problem too.
“It comes back to dealing with that nutrient balance at the front end,” Huculak said. “A little more dilution of wastewater at the front end will assure that we can get to less than one milligram (mg) per litre, which is our target. That will also ensure we get to the biomass yield we’re looking for, which slightly underperformed where we wanted to be, just because again there was way more nutrient than could be absorbed by the algae that was in each cycle.”
When Symbiotic presented results of the pilot to Wheatland council on July 2, council postponed discussion and then went on summer break.
“I believe they (council) have a fairly progressive view of how to incorporate management of the environment and building a little more resiliency in terms of infrastructure,” Huculak said. “They’ve stated those priorities as part of their strategic plan, so I think it’s all pretty good. We just need their go-ahead to go.”
Symbiotic hopes to hear from council this month, with a decision about next steps. Then they’ll submit the project to Alberta Environment for approval.
“We are ready to move forward with an application to Alberta Environment,” Huculak said.
Symbiotic has also decommissioned the pilot.
If Symbiotic were to install a full-scale Rosebud Symbiotic facility, it would likely be on land that the county has an option to purchase, slightly north of the Rosebud hamlet.
Two other southern Alberta communities are also awaiting Alberta Environment’s decision about this project, she said.
“We’re very confident that the results met all of the expectations that (Alberta Environment) set out, as far as a provable facility,” said Huculak. “So it’s really just a decision-making process right now.”
She emphasized the pilot results haven’t been submitted to Alberta Environment yet, but Symbiotic’s data analysis meets all the requirements.
“We don’t anticipate a problem, but it’s not approved until it’s approved,” she said.
In the meantime, Symbiotic continues to move forward with other aspects of the technology, Huculak said.
“It’s all about what we can do for Wheatland County and the rural areas in southern Alberta.”