Residual Waste Treatment Facility

under construction

Opportunity Greater Victoria dumps an average of 82 million litres of raw sewage into the Strait of Juan de Fuca every day. In 2006 an environmental report commissioned by the Ministry of the Environment noted that the contamination of seabed sites near discharge points had unsafe levels of toxins such as copper, mercury and lead. As a result, the Capital Region District (CRD) was mandated by the B.C. Ministry of the Environment to plan for and initiate a new wastewater treatment system. A new system is also necessary to meet the Federal Wastewater Effluent Regulations, which came into effect on January 1, 2015 and set mandatory minimum standards for wastewater quality. The new system, known as the Seaterra Program— formerly the Core Area Wastewater Treatment Program (CAWTP)— includes the McLoughlin Point Wastewater Treatment Plant and a Residual Waste Treamtent Facility, which will turn waste into biosolids, a nutrient rich organic material. The federal government announced its support for the project on July 16, 2012 with $83.4 million of funding from PPP Canada. Results The new facility is located on the existing Hartland landfill site and included the design and construction of: A sludge dewatereing and stabilization facility; A biosolids storage and truck loading facility; Pumping stations; andd 18 kilometres of pipes to carry the sludge separated out at the new McLoughlin wastewater treatment plant to the Resource Recovery Centre. Processing the solids extracted by wastewater treatment provides several opportunities for beneficial use including generating methane gas for use on and off site in the natural gas distribution system and extraction of phosphate which can be sold and used as a fertilizer in agriculture and will significantly reduce the environmental impact of the CRD’s wastewater products.

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