But proposed plant needed to accommodate growth in northern York Region has residents of Georgina Island worried about the future.
The municipality behind a proposed sewage treatment plant that will drain into the highly sensitive Lake Simcoe watershed says the technology it plans to use is the most advanced in the country.
York Region is awaiting approval from the province on its $685-million Upper York Sewage Solutions project, which will release 40 million litres of treated sewage per day into the East Holland River — water that will eventually make its way into Lake Simcoe.
“There’s nothing built like this in Canada,” Rabeau said.
“And it’s well beyond anything already being done on the lake,” which is also home to 14 other sewage plants that have been dumping effluent into the lake for decades.
“With our plant, we have third level of treatment and fourth level of treatment, which is basically not done on treatment in Canada,” he said.
One will be “high-purity reclaimed water” that will be released into the East Holland River, and will actually “enhance the water quality in the river,” which currently doesn’t meet provincial water quality standards, he said.
They have also visited plants in California and Nevada, which have been using similar technology for years.
Globally, a number of countries are utilizing similar technologies to find ways to turn wastewater into tap water, in the face of global water scarcity.
In an environmental assessment of the project online, the ministry says each “successive treatment level at a water pollution control plant provides an additional level of micro-constituent removal.” Studies are also underway to investigate the effectiveness of different water treatment technologies in reducing pharmaceuticals and other contaminants found in wastewater across the province.