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The state of Canada’s wastewater treatment systems has become a topical issue in many regions, as cities and towns become concerned about how their waste is being managed. Toronto’s sewer sludge has been banned from Michigan State, and three provincial capitals – Victoria, Halifax, and St. John’s – are developing or implementing plans to deal with their present practices of discharging untreated waste into the ocean.
Canada currently releases around 200 billion litres of raw sewage directly into natural waterways each year, roughly 6 percent of the total wastewater produced each year. With varying levels of treatment across the country, municipal sewage (wastewater) is the largest source of pollution discharged to surface water bodies in Canada, says the Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment.
Municipal wastewater contains a mix of human waste, biological materials, and over 200 identified chemicals from industries, institutions, households, and other sources. Once released into water bodies, such wastewater can pose risks to human, animal and plant life, and could seriously harm industries such as tourism and fisheries.
In the European Union, all communities with more than 15,000 people are required to use secondary treatment, which removes some biodegradable matter from sewage using bacteria and other microrganisms, inactivated sludge, or filters. All coastal cities in the United States must have secondary treatment.
With no national standards to follow, cities in Canada employ a wide mix of treatment options, from advanced tertiary treatment, to simple primary treatment, to no treatment at all.
Primary treatment separates large solids by filtration, and collects sediment and organic matter in settling tanks. Tertiary treatment is usually employed when treated effluent is being released to an environmentally sensitive area. It involves the removal of target pollutants that can be achieved by a variety of physical, chemical, or biological methods.
In response to the lack of coordination of wastewater management policies, the Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment has been working for several years to develop a countrywide strategy for municipal effluent. Following detailed consultations, the final strategy will be presented this November. It is also possible that the upcoming federal government environmental policy announcement will contain a provision for wastewater treatment, making current voluntary guidelines mandatory.
However the message is delivered, it is likely that Canada will soon have a nationally regulated standard for municipal wastewater management. This will mean that many cities and towns across the country may have to review their existing treatment plans and update their facilities or long-term strategies.
Some cities have already been forced to deal with the issue.
British Columbia’s capital, Victoria, has been criticized for years for its policy of discharging raw sewage directly into the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Municipal officials have maintained that the ocean environment has the natural capacity to absorb the waste, but BC’s environment minister Barry Penner has given the Capital Region District until June 30th, 2007, to deliver a long-term plan for sewage treatment. While not specifying the level of treatment required, Penner wants new, cutting edge technologies to be considered.
Halifax Harbour, one of Eastern Canada’s most active ports, is still being contaminated by over 181 million litres of untreated water per day. The Halifax Regional Council is now implementing the $333 million Halifax Harbour Solutions project, which aims to eliminate the flow of raw sewage and other contaminants. The three-part plan consisting of major investments in sewage collection and treatment will address an issue that has been a detriment to the local economy and environment.
St. John’s, Newfoundland, also has embarked on a harbour cleanup project, committing $93 million in federal, provincial and local government funds towards a new wastewater treatment facility.
Toronto is struggling to cope with its excess biosolids sludge, a byproduct of wastewater treatment, after a Michigan landfill was directed by the State Department of Environmental Quality to stop receiving shipments. Around half of the concentrated sewage residue is used as fertilizer, while the excess is sent to landfills. As a result of contracts signed just before the Michigan ban took effect, about one-third of that excess will now be taken by GSI Environment Inc., and a smaller portion by Ferti-val Inc. The city must still find a way to deal with the remainder, and there are fears it may end up in nearby Lake Ontario.
Montreal employs primary treatment for most of the 900 billion litres of wastewater it pumps into the St. Lawrence River each year, but 3.6 billion litres still enters the waterway as raw sewage. Environment Canada found that most of the effluent, even that which has undergone primary treatment, contains toxic chemicals and substances that pose a risk to human and environmental health.
For First Nations communities, the wastewater problem has become severe. Indian and Northern Affairs Canada reported in 2003 that 16 per cent of the systems that were assessed posed a potentially high risk from wastewater quality problems related to sewage discharge.
See GLOBE-Net article: First Nations, the Environment and HealthThe problem stretches right across the country and extends also to many smaller urban and rural communities:
The federal government has developed a number of infrastructure funds to address the issue. The 2006 federal budget provided an additional $2 billion to renew the Canada Strategic Infrastructure Fund (CSIF) and $2.2 billion to renew the Municipal Rural Infrastructure Fund (MRIF). The Green Municipal Fund has been endowed with $550 million since 2000.
Wastewater treatment and water supply have absorbed a significant portion of those funds: eighty-five percent of the projects undertaken so far through the Infrastructure Canada Program dealt with water and waste water systems improvements.
As quoted in Maclean’s magazine, Environment Canada recognizes the need for investment: “It is widely recognized that inadequate or no waste water treatment have negative impacts on aquatic life, human uses of water, fisheries and human health. Therefore it is unacceptable and shortsighted not to maintain and upgrade infrastructure.”
The same thought was echoed in the 2003 survey of infrastructure needs in Canada carried out by Infrastructure Canada. It noted that many of the infrastructure problems faced by the various organizations and levels of government emanate from the present trends of considering construction costs only with no serious consideration given to the system performance over its service life. This serious oversight along with the budgetary constraints of the various levels of government in the eighties has led to serious infrastructure problems, including severe deterioration of many facilities due to the deferred maintenance.
The report notes “it is high time to break this trend and to ensure that all projects for new infrastructure or rehabilitation of existing deteriorated infrastructure include a detailed evaluation of the system performance over its service life, and appropriate provisions for maintenance or any necessary rehabilitation (at late middle, or later stages of the service life) measures are considered at the design stage.”
If the new environmental plan of the federal government includes regulations on wastewater treatment and effluent content, many cities and towns across the country may have to invest in upgrades or monitoring. If that is the case, huge levels of investment may be required, putting pressure on the federal and provincial governments to contribute.
Municipal governments will need to develop wastewater treatment plans in order to meet any new regulations, and will need to use those plans to secure funding not only from upper government levels, but also through leveraging the business sector in public-private partnerships to ease the financial burden of required investments.
Solving Canada’s wastewater treatment problems will not be easy or inexpensive; but it will be crucial if we are to sustain and improve the quality of life in our cities and towns.
To deal with the massive investment required to bring Canada’s wastewater treatment systems up to par, all levels of government will have to cooperate with the private sector. Developing treatment infrastructure based on sound science, and deployed in an economically efficient manner, is a major challenge the country simply cannot ignore.
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Source: GLOBE-Net