New permit may mean more waste in water

By Scott Neufeld http://www.dailycourier.ca/
The City of Vernon could soon be operating under tougher sewage disposal guidelines as a result of the water reclamation plant that opened last year. In a letter to the Ministry of Environment, the city has asked to have their operating permit changed to reflect the plant’s increased capacity. A new agreement would allow more effluent to be disposed of in the MacKay Reservoir or, in case of emergency, through the outfall pipe in Okanagan Lake. “It’s an all together change in our operating certificate,” he said. “Anyone who operates a sewage treatment plant and disposes effluent in any fashion has to have a permit. The existing permit applies to the plant that the city used for the past five decades. The new permit would reflect the cleaner wastewater that comes from the new facility. “The issue before was because we couldn’t (treat sewage) really well (the ministry) was very strict on where we could spray irrigate,” he said. “The water is of such a high quality . . . we meet the (standards) to spray irrigate without notice.” As much as possible the city has tried to reuse wastewater by treating it and then using it as spray irrigation on fields all over the city. Under stricter environmental standards, the city will have to live up to those quality levels in monthly tests. The wastewater is now clean enough that the city could dump all of it into Okanagan Lake, but Gous said Vernon chooses not to except in emergencies. He said “political will” prevents them from pumping waste into the lake. “It is more onerous on us because the new plant meets much higher standards,” he said. Incidents where effluent is pumped into the lake are rare and the last time the city dumped waste into Okanagan Lake was 1998. Gous said an emergency would include a situation where there is a power outage and waste could not be pumped to the reservoir and had to be pumped into Okanagan Lake. The outfall pipe would also be used if reservoir levels grew too high and threatened to burst the dam as it did in 1998, he said. The new wastewater treatment plant uses the most cutting edge technology, Gous said. Large inorganic materials like paper and metal are filtered out at the beginning of the process. After that the wastewater passes through a series of clarifiers where bacteria, organic matter and harmful nutrients such as phosphorous and ammonia are removed. The final product is treated to make it meet Canadian drinking water guidelines, Gous said. As part of the application to the provincial government the city has to give public notice of the potential change. Residents who may be adversely affected by the changes have 30 days from the final public posting to provide written comments to the city and the Ministry of Environment.