The Town of Gibsons is seeking grant money to help improve their wastewater treatment plant, which is currently only running at half speed and isn’t enough for all that discharge.
Director of engineering Dave Newman presented a report on the status of the plant at the Feb. 3 council meeting.
Newman’s report estimates Gibsons’ one-third share of the project costs at about $600,000. The total cost can be partially covered by the New Building Canada Fund-Small Communities Fund (NBCF-SCF).
This new joint federal and provincial government program is intended to support infrastructure projects in communities with a population of less than 100,000. Under NBCF-SCF, the federal and provincial governments each contribute one third of the total costs with a combined total of up to $218 million should a project warrant such a high estimated cost.
If the Town of Gibsons receives the grant, they would be left with a bill estimated at $600,000 — plus all ineligible project costs.
The grant would cover a project to build a bigger wet well for the Prowse Road lift station. Right now, the lift station handles about half of the sewage from Gibsons and pumps it up into the treatment plant. The other half runs in from above by way of gravity. Both meet at the headworks before intake into the treatment plant, but the headworks are not designed to handle that much intake.
With the proposed upgrades, the lift station would fill during peak times and discharge during lower flow periods of the treatment plant.
“Which would fit with the capabilities of the headworks,” Newman said. “One of the issues with capacity is that the headworks just aren’t sized to have our pumps run as fully as they could be right now. If we build the Prowse Road lift station a bigger wet well, it wouldn’t be an issue, but right now with the pumps that we have in there, we can only run them at half speed.”
The dewatering system is also running at half speed. Intended to run only 30 hours per week, it is currently running at 63. And the alkalinity in the wastewater, which should be 257 mg per litre, is at 54 per cent of what the treatment plant is designed to process.
Following the discussion, council approved receipt of Newman’s report and gave staff the green light to go ahead with the grant application.
