Ecological water reclamation

Times Contributor    

 

Patrick Meyer is a consultant for an innovative new waste water reclamation process that revolutionizes the way a community addresses waste water disposal.

He came to Wheatland County Council on June 10 and spoke to council, and the developers in the Muirfield area, whose residents are in desperate need of a resolution to their waste water woes.

“Putting one of these in town, rather than being an eyesore, it can be an enhancement for the community,” said Meyers. 

The new concept combines the best of a traditional water treatment plant and ecological wetland treatment processes, to treat both grey and black water. Instead of using chemical treatments, and holding ponds, it utilizes a sustainable indoor wetland ecosystem. Organic compounds held in an underground tank are broken down by aeration, filtration and bio-augmentation into simpler parts that can be used by bacteria, algae, snails, frogs and aquatic organisms and plants. Gases are filtered off to be utilized for heat or other uses. The waste stream left over is run through sand beds and ultra-filtered, then treated with UV light, leaving water pure enough for use in irrigation or other non-potable uses. The remaining sludge is used in a worm composter (see:www.ecotek.ca).

As for pharmaceutical and heavy metal contaminants, Meyer said no one has developed a system to remove these in conventional or other treatment processes, and more research is needed by the industry as a whole. He speculated that filtration systems could be developed, but was not sure how expensive they would be.

These eco-system plants can be put in the heart of a community as no odors or harmful gases are present. There are in operational sites located at the University of British Columbia, Station Point Greens in Edmonton and it is used in the Town of Cynthia, located in Brazeau County. 

All those sites have greenhouse components. One site sells tropical plants it produces, another has actually set up walkways and a coffee shop inside the glassed off walls. Others use the plant to heat the office buildings. There are suggestions the water could be used by irrigation, or sold for industrial uses like fish farms or to oil contractors. These systems could also be used for educational purposes. It would also provide employment, as the ecosystem requires maintenance.

The company intends to take the system to the next step, by testing if the water could be used to produce market gardens and food crops.

The smaller eco-systems restore 80 meters of sewage in a two to three day turnaround, and is about one fifth of the cost of traditional plants. Savings can be reached by eliminating trucking of sewage (which is the stop gap method now used in Muirfield), or realized in eliminating expensive installations, such as lift stations used in conventional treatment plants. Lisa Marie Fox, executive director of Sustainable Resources Ltd., said there are several funding sources that could be requested for communities interested in the product.

The plants currently only handle the needs of a small community. It was suggested that within a city, each community would have an ecosystem. Larger capacity systems for larger populations haven’t been developed. However, Meyer believes ecosystems will be the way sewage is treated in the future. 

The company said its major roadblock is getting approval for the plants because legislation and regulation is built around traditional methods. The province is supportive of the idea, as it fits into green policies and water management initiatives, but remodelling the existing governance structure is a slow process. He hoped that municipalities will take initiative and create opportunities that will move government to respond.

“It is a lot easier to build new regulations rather than going through the process of tearing a regulation down,” said Councillor Ben Armstrong, who has seen similar delays for the SAEWA recycling project.

One councillor suggested it could be adapted to irrigate seedlings, an opportunity opening up due to the federal government’s cutback of the PFRA Shelterbelt program. The Muirfield developers were split on their opinion of the system. There were several hurdles in the area that had to be cleared before a system like this would work for them. They were looking for a solution that could be implemented immediately.

Reeve Glenn Koester hoped the session offered an additional option for the developers to the problems plaguing the Muirfield area. He indicated Wheatland Council will try to help them bring parties together, where an acceptable solution can be reached.