BARRHEAD – After being directed in mid-January to investigate septic disposal options for local residents who currently have to haul their sewage out of the municipality, Woodlands County administration reported on the results of that inquiry during the Feb. 15 council meeting.
Unfortunately, the news was not great.
Woodlands County reeve John Burrows had previously raised the issue of inadequate septic disposal options at the Jan. 16 council meeting.
Burrows indicated he had spoken to a resident who was concerned about the high cost of hauling sewage down to Mayerthorpe. (At one point, residents could haul sewage into the Town of Whitecourt, but that was halted a number of years ago.)
With that in mind, Burrows put forward a motion to have administration investigate some options, which the rest of council supported unanimously.
During the Feb. 15 meeting, Woodlands County manager of environmental services Steve Hollett said one of the first options they had looked at was upgrading the county’s lagoons to accept septic waste.
The biggest obstacle to pursuing this option was cost, as a recent study by Stantec Engineering determined the county would have to spend between $3 to $4.5 million to sufficiently upgrade the lagoons.
Hollett calculated it would take between 20 to 30 years for the county to recoup the cost of a $4.5 million upgrade.
Hollett’s report also listed a couple of other obstacles to upgrading the county’s lagoons, such as having to apply to Alberta Environment and Parks (AEP) for an amendment to the county’s current licence.
Furthermore, Hollett said having an unmanned receiving station would increase the risk of contamination in the county’s lagoons, as he pointed out that the chemistry within a lagoon is very delicate and cleaning up contaminants can be very costly.
Hollett noted that because the receiving water for the lagoons is the Athabasca River, they would need to increase monitoring and testing to protect the river.
Next, Hollett looked at the possibility of an arrangement with the Town of Whitecourt to dump sewage at their treatment facilities once again, but that line of investigation did not bear fruit.
“I spoke to a representative of the Town of Whitecourt, and they’re not interested in taking anything from outside of their town limits at this time,” he said.
He then looked at the possibility of hauling septic waste to the Whitecourt Airport, but Hollett stressed the system there was not designed for that purpose and it would create problems.
He indicated that because septic waste consists mainly of solids, using the airport’s system in this way would create blockages, which in turn would need expensive repairs.
“So with the way the system is set up, there’s just no way that that could actually work out,” he said.
Finally, Hollett said he contacted a number of septic waste haulers and determined the price for their service was very reasonable, costing between $450 to $500 per load without much variance between the various companies.
“They keep it pretty much standard with anything in the area,” Hollett said.
Burrows said it was his understanding that the way a proper septic disposal system worked under new requirements, trucks would dump their loads into a kind of capture where the contents are examined to ensure it is all organics, and then the contents of that capture are flushed into a system.in mind
He asked Hollett if Lac Ste. Anne had that kind of system in place. Hollett responded that was the case, and this is also why it would cost $3 to $4.5 million to upgrade the county’s lagoons.
“To put any more load on those, we would need to basically redesign them and rebuild how they work right now,” he said, noting they would also have to add power to the various sites.
Ultimately, after going through the entire report, Hollett recommended that council accept it for information, which they did via a motion.
