We have recently had challenges controlling the sewer smells in Oliver for the last month and a half. We are currently working with a large commercial customer that contributes a majority of the waste that could contribute to the increased smells in our system. The business is currently working on a waste pre-treatment facility on their property and it is almost completed. They will start processing their waste in early October and will be able to ramp up to full production before the end of October. This takes a bit of time due to their processing to grow the good bacteria that will help treat this waste. Instead of their waste directly flowing into our sewer system, this pre-treatment will help on a number of levels before the waste reaches our system. Some of the benefits are:
· Hydrogen Sulphide (higher H2S levels can contribute to smells) levels should be reduced,
· Biochemical Oxygen Demand (BOD’s) will also be reduced so oxygen levels in the waste will be better able to break down the organic material present and these BOD’s can also contribute to smells, especially in warmer weather,
· pH in the waste water will be better neutralized to help prevent the waste from being too acidic which can lead to break down of infrastructure over time,
· spills or concentrated waste will also be captured and treated before entering Oliver’s system,
· more consistent flows (quantity) during peak production times, since flows have increased about 20% in the last few weeks,
· other advantages will surface with the pre-treatment as well.
To date, Town operating crews have been increasing chemical dosages to combat some of the smells (in two of our lift stations) before they reach our Public Works Equalization basins, located in our yard. We have also ramped up our mixers in these equalization basins to increase the oxygen levels to combat the smells and the breakdown of the material coming to us. We are also trying to move the waste quicker, by pumping the waste to our treatment facility out of Town more frequently so it does not sit in our equalization basins too long. We have recently inquired about more chemical additions to the basins but before we spend $10’s of thousands of dollars, we want to make sure the pre-treatment will do what it is supposed to do and adding the chemical product may or may not work at this point. The cooling temperatures should also work in our favour since we did not have any complaints the months leading up to August and they only surfaced after the first week of August when we finally received our summer.
Recently, Council had a discussion at a recent ‘Committee of the Whole’ meeting about a new servicing agreement with the Osoyoos Indian Band (OIB) mainly for a new development at their golf course. Because the commercial customer resides on OIB lands, the Town is taking the following approach:
“That discussions begin on a new sewer service agreement with the OIB, but a condition of any such agreement be that no sewer connection be permitted until the Vincor pre-treatment facility is completed and satisfactorily tested to resolve all of Oliver`s treatment capacity concerns;
CARRIED UNANIMOUSLY”
The Town is hoping that the OIB help take some or all of the customers waste (OIB have a new waste water facility in their new industrial subdivision) and maybe a three way agreement will result in a final solution. We are waiting until this pre-treatment facility is fully operational, so we can better understand the waste product and all parties can then make a more informative decision. The Town will also be looking at producing a new ‘Waste Acceptance’ agreement with this customer that will set higher parameters and be able to levy higher charges/fines if the customer cannot meet the expected targets… if they stay on as a Town customer. The Town is also working on some capital upgrades (this Fall) that will include better technologies for screening the waste, disposing the screened waste and filtering smells contributed from this new process and also capturing the smells form our main influent lift station at our Public Works yard. This project will cost approximately $525,000 +/-.
Unfortunately, all that I have mentioned are not short term solutions to the problem and we do realize that there are legitimate concerns with these recent smells but as you can see we have been working on improving our operational and infrastructure needs to help combat these problems in the future.
Shawn Goodsell, CET – Director of Operations