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‘Ongoing issues’ plague new sewage treatment plant more than two years after it was commissioned

Problems predate the $36 million facility being turned over to city control, according to a memo from the public works director.
wastewater treatment plant exterior
The exterior of Thompson’s new wastewater treatment plant as it appeared in 2019 shortly before commissioning.

Thompson’s new wastewater treatment plant is costing the city money due to ongoing issues that persist over two years after it was commissioned and passed over to the city’s control.

“The WWTP has had many ongoing issues from before the plant was turned over to the city,” around August 2019, says a memo from Thompson public works director to the city manager that was discussed at council’s committee of the whole meeting April 4. “The operators are continuously working with the designers and builders to correct all issues. With the design, when one system malfunctions, it creates issues for all previous process components. Some of these issues will take many months to correct – e.g. the high cost use of septic trucks to remove wastewater from the digesters to provide tank volume to accept SBR [sequencing batch reactor] discharge.”

The city paid an invoice for approximately $26,000 for the removal of wastewater in February.

Coun. Les Ellsworth and others questioned why the city ever agreed to take over operation of the sewage treatment plant if issues hadn’t been resolved by the builders and designer.

“If I was building a house and I hired a contractor and the contractor comes up to me and said, ‘We want to turn this property over to you but the electrical doesn’t work,’ … I got a feeling I wouldn’t be taking it over,” he said.

Unlike many sewage treatment plants, Thompson’s does not have open tanks. They were designed to be closed to save construction costs by so that the building housing offices and operational machinery could be built on top of the tank instead of another foundation being constructed.

“What I want to know is what recourse the City of Thompson has should this facility not be able to demonstrate compliance with the regulatory environment currently set forth by the feds and [provincial] government?” Coun. Jeff Fountain asked city manager Anthony McInnis, who said that was a matter he would discuss in-camera with councillors. When asked when that discussion could be made public, McInnis said, “That would be my discussion with council.”

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