The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
Jonathon Naylor Editor The City of Flin Flon may file a lawsuit against the designer or builder of its sewage treatment plant if a study finds a flaw in the multimillion-dollar facility. At the recommendation of the Manitoba Water Services Board, city council voted last week to spend $16,200 on a performance review of the plant. A potential problem exists in a part of a plant that produces bubbles that encourage the growth of bacteria used to treat incoming waste. Coun. Ken Pawlachuk said the bubble machine now used makes small bubbles, whereas a more expensive machine would producer larger, more effective bubbles. Less efficient Coun. Bill Hanson, chair of the city's Engineering Services Committee, said the plant is working well, just not as efficiently as it could. The Water Services Board recommended a study, Coun. Hanson said, because the warranty on the plant has expired and the board believes there is 'a design flaw.' 'So that's why we need a study, to find out what in fact happened,' he said. That prompted Coun. Colleen McKee to ask whether the city will receive money back if the plant was improperly designed or built. See 'A...' on pg. 6 Continued from pg. 1 Coun. Hanson said he doubts it, but Municipal Administrator Mark Kolt said there would be 'a good potential of a lawsuit.' 'You can't start a lawsuit unless you've got something (that shows) exactly what the problem is and how it occurred,' Kolt said. Kolt said there have been 'a number of different things with our wastewater treatment plant that were not very satisfactory.' '...and with all of them, at some point there's going to be a cost associated,' he said. 'Those things were put in (the plant) in order to accomplish a particular function. And it's like taking parts out of a car. It may work for a while, but eventually something's going to go wrong. The parts are there for a reason and whether it's going to cost money now or in 10 years in the future or six months from now, is not something that I can personally answer.' The study is expected to be completed in the very near future. Coun. Hanson said bacteria-based treatment, bubbles and all, is now the standard in sewage treatment. Carrying a price tag of roughly $13 million, the city's sewage treatment plant opened in 2005 off Boundary Ave. along Ross Creek. Batch reactors It utilizes a pair of sequential batch reactors to aerate incoming waste. This means a continuous flow of sterilization, as one of the 2,500-cubic metre tanks fills up while the other treats waste material. The plant also features a UV channel, which utilizes ultraviolet light as the final step of disinfection. This replaced the older method of chlorine disinfection, which is less effective and creates byproducts. The plant means water released into Ross Creek is free of nitrogen and phosphorus _ major contributors to algae blooms _ and cleaner than lake water. The facility, constructed within a magnificent rock gorge, was the second and final component of a sewage system upgrade in Flin Flon. The first phase, a headworks building and new piping, was completed by 2001.
