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- Page 4 -
March 16/02

INTERVIEW WITH A CONCERNED CITIZEN, WHO HAS WORKED IN OTTAWA'S
WASTEWATER TREATMENT PROCESSING FOR 25 YEARS

This information has put a new twist on WHY the city is so bent on connecting Munster to the City’s sewer system --- with a permanent lagoon or two— regardless of cost, and regardless of its detriment to the environment.

Condensation of 2 ½-hour Interview:

Why are you talking with us?

"I approached you because I am a concerned Citizen, too. What I see on the website is good, (as far as it goes), but that’s only the tip of the iceberg. It bothers me, as a taxpayer, to see the City waste so much money on sewage handling systems and approaches that have consistently failed in the past. I see our present approach, of centralized wastewater servicing for outlying communities, as being completely unsustainable. How much further out do we intend to collect sewage? We can’t properly handle what we collect now. It’s going to lead to more and more clogged pipelines, more forcemain breaks, and bigger and bigger raw sewage bypasses to the Ottawa River at peak flow periods.

Every day that goes by, the City is going further in the opposite direction of its eventual need to have tertiary quality output. The way we’re going now, when that day comes, the costs will be enormous. What we should be doing, presently, is providing tertiary treatment —locally— for these rural communities, and then there will be that much less conversion to do later in the core area."

The Problem:

"Human waste should be treated as quickly as possible after it is produced. That’s why treatment at source is so good. The longer the distance sewage has to be moved through a forcemain, the higher is the risk that it will turn ‘septic’. This creates four additional problems:

1.) Slow moving sewage goes septic, settles out and builds up on the inside of the forcemains, until they are clogged. The City presently spends millions of dollars per year (usually in private contracts), unclogging and venting sewer forcemains (such as the Glen Cairn Trunk Sanitary Sewer), and cleaning out pumping stations (such as the Acres Road Pump Station).

2.) Sewage as it goes septic produces Hydrogen Sulfide (H₂S) gas, and Methane gas. This produces very annoying and unhealthy odours in public places, and creates risk of explosions, if not dispersed quickly or otherwise dealt with, always at additional expense.

3.) Sewer gasses are very corrosive, resulting in shortened lifetimes of exposed materials. That’s the reason why the pipeline under Eagleson Road, which was first installed about twenty years ago, had to be replaced in 1999, and why extensive venting of the Glen Cairn Trunk (which you can see along East side of Eagleson, between Robertson Road and the Queensway) (left photo). Also, on the North side of the Queensway, (on Timm Road), just East of Eagleson, note the work currently being done to install an air-scrubbing exhaust-filter system there (right photo).


Septic gas vents are approximately 100M apart		Septic gas filter , north of Queensway, on Timm Road (built 2002)

4.) When sewage arrives, in ‘septic’ condition, at the Gloucester treatment plant (ROPEC), it is much more costly and difficult to treat, and if it’s added too quickly to the primary treatment system, it can interfere with the digestion process."

The City’s (Wrong) Approach to the Problem —and what it means for Munster:

"The City plans to permanently use lagoons in Munster and Richmond, (and all future hook-ups of remote rural villages), to store solids during non peak-flow periods. Obviously, if, in Munster’s case, an 8-inch, or 10-inch pipeline is needed to avoid too much storage time in lagoons during peak flows, then during the other 10-or-so months, when the flows have dropped from 1,900 M³ per day to 575 M³ per day, then all the above problems (of sepsis, gas generation, and clogging) would occur in the pipeline.

Therefore, the City’s plan is to have one (preferably two) lagoon cells at Munster, to retain solids for the remainder of the year, when the pipeline size is too big to move solids quickly. That would be the case for 9 to 11 months of the year, and, that is the part the residents haven’t been properly informed about. By sending just the supernatant lagoon water through the pipelines, during the "average-flow" volumes, for 9-11 months of the year, the City hopes to reduce the occurrences of clogging. But Munster will be stuck with continuous-use lagoons."

THE BIG "WHY?"

If it costs more to do what the City wants, and it’s more harmful to the environment, why is the city so determined to avoid on-site treatment in Munster?

"You’ve touched on a few reasons on your website. But, as I see it, you haven’t discussed the biggest reason, of all. The City is trying to harvest all water it can, from wherever it can (preferably without the troublesome solids), to flush out (in this case), the Glen Cairn collector which has been a real problem area. That’s why they want supernatant from Munster and Richmond to move things faster through the lines, downstream. That’s why there was even an attempt, at one point, to move the Trail Road leachate through the Eagleson forcemain.

Just watch: when the problems persist with the Glen Cairn and Tri-Township collectors, their next "solution" will probably be, to put solids-retention lagoons in Carp and Stittsville! Manotick may also have lagoons in its future.

This was the same problem (i.e.: slow-moving sewage) the City’s ‘experts’ created, which caused the oversized Ottawa South collector failure, and this is the reason they had to put the big gas exhaust vents on Eagleson Road, north of Robertson Road.

You will likely never get a direct admission that this is the reason for pushing for the Munster pipeline, because it has absolutely no economic or environmental justification, (compared with the local treatment plant options). However, that IS their internal logic ...such as it is. Throwing good money after bad, doesn’t seem to faze them, here.

But, the City can’t go on forever, grabbing water from outlying areas to flush out their ever-expanding systems, and leaving the solids behind. That’s not Wastewater Treatment! It’s costly, it’s wasteful of our water resources and it’s completely unsustainable. And at peak flow periods of spring, it’s going to lead to ever-increasing incidence of raw sewage bypasses, every time lagoon retention capacities are exceeded, at all these new connection locations (such as Munster). That’s why I contacted you."

How do you see this getting resolved?

"It’s a huge problem and it’s out of control. There is so much secrecy, and the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing. In fact, no one seems to know what they’re doing. They’re just making things worse. Outside consulting engineers are being brought in all the time, to advise on how to correct the problems, and their ideas fail too; a real case of the blind leading the blind.

As for Munster, a local treatment plant is the only way to go. In fact, Richmond should have one, as well, for their future expansion. Then, between it’s existing pipeline and a treatment plant, both could be operated efficiently, while Richmond population grows. Forget lagoons, forget more (and bigger) pipelines in the future!"

Thanks for the interview.

"Thanks for what you’re doing, and for letting me get this off my chest. And, Good Luck to Munster!"