$8 Million Upgrade to Sewage Treatment Plant

I arranged to have a tour of the Georgetown Waste Water Treatment Plant on Friday morning. The plant is getting a number of upgrades that will ensure there is capacity for Georgetown within the existing urban boundaries. This upgrade will not meet the capacity needs of the new growth planned for the 2021 to 2031 timeframe.

The plant is located in Hungry Hollow just east of Mountainview Road. Because it is in a heavily wooded area it is difficult to see even from the trail immediately across Silver Creek.
Under certain conditions the plant causes odour problems for the residents living along the edge of the ravine, particularly in Georgetown south. Many of the upgrades are intended to reduce odour impacts.

The top photo shows the progress with the new digester. Friday was the last day that concrete was being poured and it is expected that the digester will closed in prior to winter settling in.

This is a Halton Regional Facility and the upgrades will cost the Region $8.25 million.
My tour included all of the processes and odour reducing features.

This plant could be described as 'state of the art' although there are some plants in the world that actually produce potable water at the end of the process. In this case the water that is discharged into Silver Creek is more pure than the water in the Creek. The middle picture shows the outlet and it certainly looks clean.

This plant must produce clean water because it is going into a creek. Plants that discharge into Lake Ontario are not required to meet this standard because they have much less impact on such a huge body of water.
The bottom photo shows the UV tubes being worked on by a maintenance worker. When he is finished the bank of tubes will be lowered to a rack under the floor where the water flows through the tubes for final purification/disinfection. This process replaces chlorination and is a superior process as there is no chemical residue.
Regarding odour control, some of the measures include misting with masking agents, carbon filters that absorb odour, and increased enclosure of processes including a new cone over the sludge removal area. This area will be under negative pressure to capture the odour causing molecules before they can escape to the atmosphere.

Sewage treatment is generally not a topic of conversaton. However, if the plant should ever stop working perfectly then it immediately becomes a top of mind issue. We expect it to simply work all the time. These plants are quite sophisticated and represent a significant part of your Regional tax bill. Sometimes people say to me that they don't get anything for their tax dollars but this just reveals that most of the time what they are paying for is working so well they don't even think about it.