Orangeville sewage treatment plant requires $1M repair after biosolids spill.
After two years of exploratory surgery, the bowels of the Orangeville sewage treatment plant still have some digestive issues.
The town is planning to spend about $1 million to replace the roof of an anaerobic digestor at the Water Pollution Control Plant (WPCP) after attempted repairs and multiple tests following a biosolids spill have concluded it cannot be fixed.
In April of 2015, operators at the facility on Townline noticed the roof on one of the WPCP’s two digestors had lifted off its anchors, allowing biosolids to escape and spill down the walls onto the ground.
“It is a little bit like a can of pop that has been shaken up and just cracked a little bit.
However, several attempts and multiple air pressure tests later, town staff have determined the roof needs to be replaced.
While the digestor passed a water leakage test, Jones has advised council it failed four air pressure tests conducted between June of 2016 and this past April.
On June 26, council directed town staff to draw an additional $515,800 from the town’s wastewater reserve to put toward the $1 million digestor roof replacement.
For several years, Orangeville’s sewage treatment plant has been undergoing a $26 million expansion to increase the daily amount of wastewater it can handle to 17,500 cubic metres from 14,400 cubic metres.
Jones has advised council that work is near completion.

Untreated sewage flows in most of our rivers.
A popular Kannada adage says that drinking water from the Tunga is equal to taking a bath in the Ganga.
However, the condition of the Tunga would make one balk at the idea of drinking its water, with untreated sewage from the Shivamogga City Corporation limits being discharged into it.
While this is one of the starkest cases of pollution and official apathy, many rivers in Karnataka are polluted by untreated urban sewage.
In Hassan district, for instance, among the eight urban local bodies, five have installed plants to treat sewage.
The continuous monitoring of major rivers in Karnataka indicates that domestic sewage continues to be the single largest source of pollution, and if left untreated could choke the river flow.
Water samples drawn from a few rivers, including the Lakshmanatirtha, Cauvery and Arkavati at certain stations, conform to ‘Class E’ as per environmental norms and hence are fit only for irrigation or industrial cooling.
Though quality of water along maximum stretches of the rivers in the State conforms to ‘Class C’ (fit for drinking only after treatment and disinfection), pollution owing to untreated sewage flowing into the rivers is on the rise.
The degradation of river water because of untreated domestic sewage is so high that portions of major rivers in the State have been designated as ‘Polluted river stretches’ by the CPCB, according to the report.
in Hassan.)

The city of Winnipeg could send more pollution north to Lake Winnipeg in its wastewater if provincial officials allow a change to a sewage-treatment plant licence that could also save millions of dollars.
Coun.
Scott Gillingham told reporters Thursday the city’s chief administrative officer has been in talks with the province about loosening the environmental licence for the North End sewage-treatment plant upgrades to allow it to exude an average of wastewater effluent — specifically ammonia — rather than having to always stay below the current hard cap on pollutants.
One facility will remove phosphorus and nitrogen from the effluent produced by the North End sewage-treatment plant.
The other facility will dispose of biosolids — partly treated solid waste — produced by all three of the city’s sewage plants.
When asked if this regulation change would mean more pollution flowing into Lake Winnipeg, Gillingham said the city is playing its role to protect Lake Winnipeg.
"The overall impact that the city has on the lake … there are great contributors south of the border, the watershed itself," he said.
I am saying if there could be a small amendment to the licence, the City of Winnipeg would still be doing our part to protect the lake, but it would save tens of millions for the ratepayers."
CBC News has requested an interview with McNeil.
With files from Bartley Kives

Magic in a Bottle: Orange County Launches Recycled Water Giveaway.
Today, after an investment of some $600 million, the district’s Groundwater Replenishment System is the world’s largest producer of purified wastewater.
To find out, Water Deeply recently spoke with Denis Bilodeau, who has served on the Orange County Water District board of directors for 17 years and is its current president.
Water Deeply: Why is Orange County Water District bottling its recycled wastewater?
But we didn’t, because before we built our plant we went to the streets and educated the public about what we needed to do and why.
Distilled water has very low mineral content, whereas if you buy bottled drinking water, there are minerals added for taste.
And it’s cheaper than importing water from the Sacramento Bay-Delta and the Colorado River, because it’s so energy-intensive to move that water across the state.
It’s about one-third of our water now.
And we’ve invested now, I think, $600 million into our recycling program and that’s the public’s money.
And we want to undertake the final expansion of the project, which would bring it up to 130 million gallons per day.

Paradip to get sewage treatment plant soon.
While the project is being funded by World Bank under the Integrated Coastal Zone Management Programme (ICZMP), 50 acres of land at Bhitragada was provided by the Paradip Port Trust (PPT) to the State Government for the purpose last year.
This apart, the Paradip Municipality has identified five landfill spots in the town where solid waste from the town and industries will be dumped before being taken to the treatment plant.
Over the years, generation of solid waste from Paradip, also an industrial hub, has increased.
Of the 50 acres of land provided by the PPT, 20 acres would be used for setting up of the solid waste treatment plant.
“Solid waste would be collected from households and industries and dumped at landfill sites.
They would be collected from these five landfill sites and taken to the waste treatment plant,” he said.
Polluted zone The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Delhi, has identified Paradip industrial hub as one of the country’s most polluted places.
The Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) had entrusted IIT-Delhi for preparation of a comprehensive environmental pollution index (CEPI) of Paradip recently.
The survey, that was a composite measurement of air and water pollution and land degradation, found the level of pollution to be 69.6 per cent, which indicates that Paradip is on the verge of becoming a critically polluted zone.The CEPI for critically polluted zone stands at 70.

Patriot, located on the north end of town, treats wastewater it receives from customers.
Then in May, Water Pollution Control started noticing the presence of dimethyl disulfide in the water, Haller said.
Andy Blockson, president of Patriot Water, said the key for him is that dimethyl disulfide is not regulated by the EPA, so his company is not required to test for it.
If Patriot discharged the compound, “we wouldn’t know because we don’t test for it,” he said.
Haller said testing indicated that Patriot did discharge the chemical, and Blockson agrees that is true.
But he also believes it has come from other sources because it’s a common chemical and “it’s everywhere.” Haller said one of the reasons the chemical went into Warren’s treatment system is because Patriot was accepting wastewater from a Dayton-area landfill.
When the public started complaining about smells, Water Pollution Control investigated its industrial facilities.
Throughout last week, the Ohio EPA conducted meetings in Warren that included the Mahoning Trumbull Air Pollution Control Agency, Warren Water Pollution Control, Patriot and Ohio Department of Health, Haller said.
Sometime late last week, Patriot shut down its discharge of water into the city’s sewers in the presence of Water Pollution Control officials except for wastewater from toilets and sinks.
Blockson said Patriot has shut off any discharges into the sewer system and is not receiving any liquid wastes until the chemical is completely gone from Patriot Water.

But not Floyds Fork.
Consider: A $362,000 effort led by Kentucky Waterways Alliance to build consensus on a voluntary plan to manage the Floyds Fork watershed blew up in 2008 when another environmental group, Floyds Fork Environmental Association, sued all participants and claimed it was shut out of the process.
New planning effort Louisville planning officials said they will try one more time starting this summer to reach consensus on development in the Floyds Fork area, with the support of Stuart Benson, a Republican who represents the area on the Louisville Metro Council.
Its watershed drains 284 square miles in six Kentucky counties, and state officials are quick to point out what happens in all those counties — not just Jefferson — affects its water quality.
He said farmers wanted to make sure the Floyds Fork plan was done properly and contended that the computer modeling done for the plan by Tetra Tech was flawed.
Frank said he believes the delay was in large part because the modeling has revealed the seriousness of the pollution problem and how it could potentially limit growth.
"The real answer is (the state) didn’t like the model’s results," he claimed, adding that Friends of Floyds Fork wants to make sure the state and EPA complete what they started after the Future Fund lawsuit.
He said developers are interested in building in southeast Jefferson County, which is now zoned for one home every 5 acres.
Park as growth magnet Larger rivers are better able to absorb the treated discharge from sewage plants, and MSD explored a long-term solution of joining with other surrounding counties to construct a big, regional sewage treatment plant in the Fort Knox area on the Salt River near the Ohio River.
"But if we build the way we’ve been building, we will kill the creek."

CHENNAI: The Union government’s move to tap treated water from sewage treatment plants (STPs) to fulfil the needs of coal power plants will not be adequate as STPs do not have enough capacity to fulfil the needs of power plants, said a report from environmental NGO Greenpeace.
According to the study, ‘Pipe Dreams: Treated Sewage will not solve coal power’s water problems’, a 1,000-MW coal-based power plant requires 84 million litres a day while most of the sewage treatment plants in smaller cities have a daily capacity of less than 20 million litres.
The Power Ministry has mapped the operational sewage treatment plants in cities that are at a maximum distance of 50 km from the power plant, and has identified 29 power plants across the country, which could be supplied with treated water from STPs.
Of these, two are in Tamil Nadu — National Thermal Power Corporation Tamil Nadu Energy Company Limited (NTECL) in Vallur and Ind Bharat Power Gen in Thoothukudi.
However, according to Greenpeace, less than 8 per cent of India’s coal power plants can completely switch from fresh water to treated sewage water, while about 5 percent can partially meet their water requirements from treated sewage.
The study said switching from fresh water to treated water will not reduce the impact of coal power plants on water scarcity in the country.
It also called for timely adoption of water consumption target set by the Environment Ministry in its notification dated December 7, 2015.
All permits for new coal plants must be halted as they are in any event not required at least till 2027 as per the Central Electricity Authority’s draft National Electricity Plan, said the report.
“Switching to treated sewage water is not a solution to the water scarcity created by coal power plants and should be done after an impact assessment,” the report said.
The way out, the report, said was moving to renewable technologies such as solar energy, which have many advantages.

National Mission for Clean Ganga Approves Sewage Treatment Infrastructure Projects To Curb Water Pollution.
100% sewage treatment facility for Haridwar, Rishikesh, Vrindavan, Varanasi New Delhi: The National Mission for Clean Ganga (NMCG) has approved projects worth R 1,917 crore for creating sewage treatment infrastructure in the river’s four basin states aiming to curb pollution of its water there.
The projects concerned, to be implemented under Centre’s ‘Namami Gange’ programme, were given a nod during the third meeting of the NMCG’s executive committee, the Union Water Resources Ministry said in a statement.
Among the projects approved include one aimed at intercepting, diverting and treating sewage in Allahabad’s Naini, Phaphamau and Jhunsi sewerage zones at an estimated cost of R 767.59 crore.
The NMCG cleared the R 744-crore projects including a 60-MLD STP and laying of sewerage lines in Pahari zone in Bihar’s Patna.
Patna will now have a sewage treatment capacity of 200 MLD once the projects sanctioned are functional.
“With this, all planned projects in Delhi have been approved,” the Ministry said.
Projects worth R 4,100 crore approved by National Mission for Clean Ganga in last 3 months.
The authority has until now approved projects costing over R 4,100 crore during the last three months in Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand and Delhi.
Also Read:

EPA fines council depot contractor.
AUTHORITIES have fined the contractors working on the Clarence Valley Council depot site in South Grafton $15,000, but found no asbestos had leached from the former sewerage treatment plant.
But the NSW Environment Protection Authority (EPA), said its tests of water samples taken from the runoff in March found no evidence of asbestos.
Instead the EPA fined Hutchinson because they had inadequate erosion and sediment controls in place at the site, which allowed sediment to flow into the stormwater system, and then into the Clarence River.
EPA manager regional operations North Coast Brett Nudd said erosion and sediment controls were not adequate at the time of the incident.
"EPA officers inspected the site in March during a heavy rain event and observed large volumes of turbid, sediment laden water leaving the site and entering the stormwater system," Mr Nudd said.
The samples showed no evidence that asbestos, which has been detected on the site in the past, was present in the stormwater.
Hutchinson Builders are remediating the former sewage treatment plant and are responsible for the installation and maintenance of sedimentation and erosion controls on the site.
The EPA said it also issued a prevention notice to Clarence Valley Council and Hutchinson Builders which required them to submit an updated erosion and sediment control plan and to install the updated controls by March 29, 2017.
Hutchinson cannot comment because of its contract with the council.