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DECEMBER 2019 | 59 Wastewater Treatment Plant PHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY STANTEC Wastewater Treatment Plant by LAURIE JONES LOCATION 211 Nelson Road, Thompson, Manitoba OWNER/DEVELOPER City of Thompson PRIME CONSULTANT Stantec GENERAL CONTRACTOR Bird Construction Company TOTAL SIZE 16,000 square feet TOTAL COST $34.2 million R esidents of the City of Thompson, Manitoba, will soon be enjoying the benefits of a $33-million, state-of- the-art wastewater treatment plant. Featuring a Sequencing Batch Reactor (SBR) process to service the town's growing population, the system is still in its final testing stage but will be in full operation by the end of the year. "This new plant, which was built beside the previous facility, is going to be a complete change for the City," says Neil MacLaine, director of Public Works. "It has just started accepting product in testing mode, and once all of the details have been ironed out our operators will be trained and the keys will officially be handed to us." MacLaine says looking at the old plant that was built in 1958 and see- ing the adjacent facility that is about to go into full operation is night and day. "The current population of Thompson is 13,600 and the capacity of the new plant will cover up to 15,000 people so there is room to grow. Even if that number was exceeded, the design of the plant allows for future expansion." With the new plant, the existing wastewater treatment systems will be decommissioned and desludged, making way for a composting centre program for the City. With the previous plant, there were no safeguards against escaping odours and MacLaine says on a hot day with the wind blowing in the wrong direc- tion, complaint phone calls flooded into the City offices. "With the new specifically designed odour control system, a lot of the neighbours are excited to be able to have their win- dows open in the summertime." In a press release, Mayor Colleen Smook was quoted as saying, "The plant site feels like another world com- pared to when I first visited the site in 2017. We're excited to celebrate the commissioning of the plant and the commitment to preserving our envi- ronment that it represents." The new wastewater treatment plant is designed for both biological nitrogen and phosphorus removal, explains Saibal Basu, water/wastewa- ter treatment team leader at Stantec who were the prime consultant on the project with Bird Construction as the general contractor. He says that two SBR trains are proposed. "The SBR basins will decant treated wastewater by gravity to an effluent equalization chamber on an intermittent basis. As the SBR is a batch process, this decant rate is higher than influent flow to the SBR basin." He adds they are using ultraviolet light for inactivating pathogenic dis- ease causing organisms. "In the past chlorine was used but that is a harmful chemical. We are going green now. The treated, final effluent is reused for vari- ous in-plant use such as flushing water." The plant design is very compact, utilizing the treatment tanks as a foun- dation with the buildings on top. "The operations areas of this plant and the administrative areas are all integrated, with area separations," says Basu. "This maximizes the use of space." He explains most wastewater treatment plants would have two areas, with the process operations and tanks on one side, and the 'clean area' housed in separate buildings for administration. By Manitoba standards this is a large plant, but it is relatively small com- pared to big city systems. The modern design of the build- ing is esthetically pleasing with low maintenance landscaping surround- ing the facility. "The building is also barrier-free because the City may use the space for functions such as general meetings and training," he says. "The meeting room has a state-of-the-art audiovisual system. The building also has high-energy efficient LED light- ing with proximity sensors, and in the administrative side of the building, there is a lot of glazing to bring in natural light." Basu explains the wastewater treatment plant is physically built into the ground so there are three lev- els – the below ground level has pump rooms and other mechanical systems, the grade level room is designed for road-level accessibility for chemical handling, workshop, dewatered sludge disposal, and one step up leads to the main office level and the process area. "The plant is rated to have a maxi- mum flow capacity of 13,700 cubic metres per day," he says. "It is required to meet a very stringent effluent qual- ity, from both an organic and nutrient perspective." New force mains and lift station upgrades are also taking place for the treatment facility. A 12:25 PM

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