Waste water treatment plant faces summer difficulties

High loading and mechanical problems caused non-compliance issues for Jasper’s wastewater treatment plant in July and August this summer.

Ken Quackenbush, director of environmental services, said that reports were submitted to Alberta Environmental Standards because levels were above the discharge limits set by the municipality and Parks Canada. 

“Our target levels for that plant are generally half of what the provincial guidelines are,” he said. “The reason for that is we set extremely stringent values based on (the Athabasca) being a heritage river, and we put in the technology to achieve that higher standard.”

The reports were submitted, he said, because the more stringent values set are written into the municipality’s certificate of approval to operate the plant.

Cara Van Marck, spokesperson for Alberta Environmental Standards, said each facility has an approval to discharge wastewater back into the environment at a certain concentration and rate, and if they go beyond that, it’s an act of non-compliance.

But if the municipality stays within provincial guidelines, Alberta Environmental Standards won’t act on the report. “They don’t often react but they appreciate getting this,” Quackenbush said. “The municipality is working to ensure that the Athabasca River is not negatively impacted.”

Quackenbush said it took the plant a while to recover from mechanical difficulties early in the season. “They lost a couple pumps used for wasting secondary sludge that has to be removed from the recycled stream,” he said. “These pumps are critical for solids control in the biological reactor so when you lose them the solids content goes up.”

Higher levels of concentration in the summer can pose problems for the plant. “Volume-wise we’re well within our design parameters, but concentration-wise it’s a richer stream in the summer,” Quackenbush said. “Some because of water conservation efforts, and some because there are some very rich streams coming in... things that were anticipated but still those rich streams coming in.”

Quackenbush added that the first step is finding out whether or not there is a problem. United Water, the company contracted to operate the five-year-old plant, will go back and verify that it’s running within its design requirements. “If we need to add some capacity then we certainly have the ability to do that out there,” he said. “That’s a brand new, state-of-the-art facility.”

Van Marck said the province investigates non-compliance issues to maintain its water and wastewater standards, and that both processes are an important part of producing drinking water.

“One is making sure your tap water is of quality fit for consumption, the other is making sure your wastewater discharge is a quality that’s appropriate for downstream users,” she said. “Everything you do is going to affect someone else, and eventually you’re going to be drinking that again.”