'SOLIDS-RETENTION'
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RICHMOND INDEX: ●
Latest Richmond News and
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Update on the "Former" Richmond Sewage Lagoons
| A unique,
and environmentally beneficial application of Richmond’s retired
wastewater lagoons, after the Village was hooked up to the Regional
system in 1986, was the creation of the Richmond Conservation Area
(RCA).
The RCA was officially opened in June 1993 as part of Richmond’s 175th anniversary. Goulbourn councillors, area birders, naturalists, environmentalists, staff of the Wild Bird Care Centre, birding columnist, Elizabeth LeGeyt, and Goulbourn’s Environmental Advisory Committee (GEAC) were all in attendance. Since its opening, the RCA has been recognized in the Federation of Ontario Naturalists' A Nature Guide to Ontario and Guide to Municipal Environmental Advisory Committees. It has also been recognized in Clive E. Goodwin's A Bird-Finding Guide to Ontario. |
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On 19 August 1997, Goulbourn Council passed a resolution, adopting the RCA Management Plan and advocating: "...good conservation practices for the development and management of [the RCA] as a wildlife habitat with outdoor passive recreation and educational uses which promote the appreciation of that habitat, but in no way adversely affects that habitat".
So far, a
lmost 200 different species of birds have been reported at the RCA.Conservation or Sewage Storage?
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However, although it had adopted this resolution, Goulbourn’s council
actually had other plans for the RCA. It started as a simple Council notice of the requirement for temporary, emergency sewage storage capacity in ONE cell, (cell "C") --- to be immediately withdrawn after each, infrequent, event (i.e.: a couple of days at a time, once or twice a year). However, after many failed promises, from Mayor Stavinga of Goulbourn, (later as a City Councillor), giving specific assurances that the RVA would remain a conservation area with a subsidiary shared use (of one cell only), as a very temporary emergency holding cell, the City's intentions have become increasingly clear. The City, supported by Councillor Stavinga, has been progressively moving in the direction of returning the RCA into full sewage works. |
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The drainage pipe, supposedly installed for the purpose of withdrawing the sewage from cell "C" after its infrequent, emergency usage, (in order to quickly restore its function as a conservation area), was instead designed specifically to leave the solids behind, and remove only the upper liguid-layer. This was accomplished by installing the inverted double inflow and drainage pipes 45 CM above the floor of the lagoon, (at the highest end of the cell), effectively turning cell "C" back into a permanent solids-retention sewage lagoon.
The current Certificate of Approval (C of A) for using the Richmond Lagoons as a sewage works, was obtained, through reporting to the Ministry of Environment (MOE) information that was incomplete and which, if completely known to the MOE, would likely have precluded its issuance of the C of A. None of the commitments made to protect the RCA, were disclosed to the MOE, and consequently the work done under authority of the current C of A will make it almost impossible to implement the RCA Management Plan.
UPDATE: January - 2003:
Disturbing new evidence is coming forward that strongly suggests the City's takeover of the two remaining cells ---FOR SEWAGE USE--- (i.e.: cells "B" and "A"). That means ---as had been speculated--- the City's intention all-along was to reclaim the entire Conservation area for sewage works: to create reservoirs and settling ponds ...so that liquids-only could be sent through the highly-problematic Richmond forcemain and Glen Cairn Trunk.
For a more in-depth account of recent history of the Richmond Conservation Area, view: Richmond Conservation Area "SEWERGATE"
UPDATE: July -2003: PRESS RELEASE from The Friends of the Jock River
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While the foregoing represents a significant victory, in retaining two of the lagoons strictly as conservation area, which were otherwise headed for exclusive "sewage works" use by the City, it does not alter the fact that the City is still employing incorrect use of Cell "C". Firstly, City staff are going against Provincial Planning Policy by combining mixed communal and central, water and wastewater services in Richmond. The City should never have brought central sewage collection to Richmond without bringing central (city) water services, at the same time, (as done in Stittsville). (The alternative solution would have been to keep the private and communal wells that Richmond and residents currently have, and to have installed (in 1986), a modern local wastewater treatment system to replace the inadequate lagoons.) Secondly, the City should not be using sewage holding ponds, to mask the insufficiencies and flawed design of collecting sewage from remote rural locations, and conveying it sixty kilometers or more to a solitary mega-treatment-plant. If a sewer line cannot efficiently transport sewage to a treatment plant, on its own merits, then there should be a local treatment plant set-up to treat sewage within a self-sustaining collection radius. We cannot have open sewage settling ponds springing up all over urban areas ---as crutches for a poorly designed collection and treatment infrastructure. It is this "compounding" of errors, and spending good money after bad, that is all the city engineers seem capable of doing. There's no modern thinking or innovation being applied here, and it is putting human health at risk (as in the case of the City's plan to bring a pressurized sewage forcemain from Munster, through Richmond's shallow aquifer).. Furthermore, there are several recent examples, where the "solution" is seen to be costing ratepayers over 500-percent more to implement and maintain, (again, Munster being a prime example).
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MUNSTER RESIDENTS were told the same story, as the Richmond Conservation Area Management Committee: that ONE lagoon would be necessary on a very temporary, emergency basis. (Its maximum use would be "one to three days duration, once or twice a year.") Expert Witnesses (Professional Engineers) for the Appellants, told the OMB, that the pipeline plan for Munster, with all of the challenges it would face, (i.e.: the length of time sewage would remain static in the pipeline, the peak flows in the spring contrasted with much lower flows the rest of the time, and the extreme length of the pipeline) ---for it to work--- one-or-more lagoons would be required to retain solids, at all times, so that liquid-only "wastewater", could be left static in the forcemain for long periods, without fear of it becoming blocked with build-up of solids. (CLICK HERE) As you can see from the Richmond situation, long distance forcemains ---for sewage--- just don't work well. Goulbourn Township's Staff Engineer, Michael Pinet, warned Councillor Janet Stavinga, and the rest of her own Council about this, in May of 1997:
Residents of Munster ---as in the case of Richmond--- would wake up to find that THEY TOO, HAVE BEEN BETRAYED BY THE CITY, and that the repugnant lagoons, which they so badly wanted to eliminate from the face of their community: ...WOULD STILL BE IN PLACE, AND OPERATING 365 DAYS A YEAR!
Forcemain Break- June 19, 2002
| Two Lagoon Spills in Four Months
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