Provincial money to help city reduce sewer backups, pollution

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This article was published 17/07/2023 (783 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Manitoba is flowing more cash to the City of Winnipeg to stem chances of sewage backing up into basements and the Red River in southwest Winnipeg.

On Monday, Environment Minister Kevin Klein said the province will spend $7.5 million on the city’s southwest sewer interceptor project and $433,000 on risk mitigation infrastructure at the D’Arcy Sewer Lift Station.

The two projects will reduce pollution in the Red River and Lake Winnipeg and mitigate flood risks for homes in southwest Winnipeg, says the government.

“It’s important to our government that the continued partnership with the City of Winnipeg is there in an effort to support the city’s infrastructural needs,” Klein said during an announcement at the Legislative Building with Coun. Brian Mayes, chair of the city’s water, waste and environment committee.

“We know that they’re critical.”

Klein chairs the province’s joint task force on wastewater infrastructure with Mayes, who serves as vice-chair.

The task force was established in April with a mandate to see the city’s North End Pollution Control Centre completed by 2030. The task force met for the second time Monday.

The southwest sewer interceptor is a $95 million project set for completion in 2027, Mayes said.

It includes the construction of a new sewer crossing at the Red River to carry waste to the South End Sewage Treatment Plant. It’s required to allow for continued development in the Waverley West area, the city says.

The money comes from the 2023 Provincial Strategic Infrastructure Basket.

“This almost $8 million will help us accelerate the southwest interceptor,” Mayes said.

Once completed, the additional interceptor will reduce the risk of sewage overflowing into the Red River and basement flooding in the south end, he said.

The city planned to fund the project from water and waste utility revenues.

“But this allows us to use that for some other purpose, so it gets it going quicker and it does save the city some money, so in that way it’s a benefit to the city,” he said.

Funding for upgrades at the D’Arcy Sewer Lift Station was a result of the task force deliberations, the St. Vital city councillor said.

The lift station pumps sewage across the Red River to the south end treatment plant. The upgrades will add an emergency load shedding system at the station to divert wastewater into the river during heavy rain events and prevent flooding.

“This will allow us, in event of crisis, in event of extreme weather to pump, if we have to, into the Red (River), thereby reducing the risk of basement flooding substantially in the southwest,” Mayes said. “Now that’s not necessarily great news if you’re downstream, but we do that in other parts of the city.”

He said emergency diversion of wastewater at the lift station will reduce stress on the combined sewer system elsewhere in the city.

“If we didn’t have that crisis management tool in place, we’d have a public health risk in the southwest, we’d have basement flooding and all the public health risks that go with that,” he said.

Mayes said the provincial funding will allow lift station upgrades to get underway this year.

danielle.dasilva@freepress.mb.ca