Town of Sundre operations staff have been forced to proactively pursue protective measures at the wastewater treatment plant.
Jim Hall, manager of operations, recently presented council with a disconcerting report regarding inappropriate dumping by private companies at the sewage lagoon.
Over the years, there have been improper dumps that caused problems for the facility and even placed the municipality in potential legal hot water for being in contravention of regulations until the problem could be addressed, he said during the Nov. 7 meeting.
Most recently, an as-of-yet unidentified truck driver dangerously drove a rig along a berm not designed for heavy loads and proceeded to dump raw sewage directly into the lagoon's third cell, which is largely treated effluent that is all but ready to be released back into the Red Deer River, he said.
“I can't wrap my head around it, but somebody decided it would be a good idea to drive around all the berms and get to cell three — which is basically clean, fish-loving water — and dump in there.
“I can't believe they actually drove on there, which scared us even more, because if a truck slides in there I can't even begin to think how we're going to get it out.”
Staff did not waste time taking steps to prevent similar incidents from occurring again. Work began soon after the improper dump to put up fencing to lock off the cell and restrict access, and the original discharge station was rebuilt, he said.
“Now all the trucks have to pump into there.”
Mayor Terry Leslie later inquired whether the responsible party had been indentified.
The matter remained under investigation, said Hall, adding there are about a dozen companies that have access to the wastewater treatment facility. Since the site cannot be physically guarded full-time, the operations manager said efforts are underway to take measures to do some in-house monitoring by installing some cameras, he said.
Other past issues in recent years include dumping of gravel into a cell that drastically reduced its capacity and created an emergency that required immediate dredging, as well as the later spillage of raw sewage outside of the confines of cell one during a transfer, which is a contravention, he said.
Meanwhile, an operator at the facility has been spending time at the site to speak with regional truck drivers and educate them on the serious ramifications the municipality could face following a neglectful dump, he said.
Private users are being informed that should the situation continue unchanged, staff might have no other choice but to approach council to request the sewage lagoon be closed off or at least temporarily suspended as a regional system. That's because the revenue generated from that activity “will not pay for the penalties that we would see” if Sundre was caught in contravention of regulations due to a company's neglect, he said.
But considering the companies that use the sewage lagoon would then be faced with a long and far more expensive haul to Red Deer, the operations manager seemed optimistic that the situation could be remedied, and to a large extent already has been.
“We've made major strides to secure the facility to avoid contraventions and reduce risk,” he said.
“We locked her down.”
Unfortunately, operations staff still have no way to ensure that what companies are dumping is not harmful to either the lagoon or the Red Deer River. However, Hall does not anticipate any reluctance from the companies to comply with regulations since they also rely on the service, Hall told the Round Up.
“Mistakes do happen,” he said.
