Let’s try a system that works — now

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 25/04/2024 (555 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

In less than a month, the City of Winnipeg says it will have a chemical phosphorus reduction system up and running at the North End Water Pollution Control Centre (NEWPCC).

First proposed by the Lake Winnipeg Foundation (LWF) and partners in 2019, this sewage-treatment success is, by infrastructure standards, a very quick turnaround. And we have concerned citizens to thank for this — regular people who took up the call for a practical, cost-effective phosphorus solution that wasn’t going to take decades to implement.

This chemical phosphorus reduction system is the single most important step the city has taken at NEWPCC to protect Lake Winnipeg. And so far, the city reports that chemical dosing has been performing better than expected at the north end plant.

This is all great news.

But there’s also some bad news.

Unfortunately, provincial regulators are not content with this chemical phosphorus reduction method, which has been effectively and efficiently implemented in other Canadian wastewater treatment plants for over 40 years.

Instead, provincial regulators are demanding that the city implement more expensive “biological methods” for nutrient removal at the north end plant — and this requirement has hindered progress on phosphorus reduction for decades.

Most recently, at the behest of the province, the city submitted its latest plan for biological nutrient removal, to meet “the overall desired outcome of a quality state-of-the-art treatment plant that can be delivered on schedule in the most cost-effective manner.”

Cost-effective? Critical cost projections for biological nutrient removal are misleadingly out-of-date, despite evidence that costs have likely doubled. And biological nutrient removal has always been the most expensive component of proposed NEWPCC upgrades. (For example, the 2018 estimate of $552 million for NEWPCC’s biosolids facilities was increased to $1.035 billion in 2023. Applying the same 187 per cent rate of increase to the 2018 biological nutrient removal estimate puts the current cost at over $1.5 billion.)

On schedule? That ship sailed in 2014, when the city missed the original completion date for NEWPCC compliance, and the province quietly extended the deadline.

State-of-the-art? Really? With an eye to potentially sky-rocketing utility rates, I’m inclined to think that “state-of-the-art” is not Winnipeggers’ top priority when asked about their wastewater treatment aspirations. I’d venture that Winnipeggers might simply prefer wastewater treatment that is compliant.

Yet, under the auspices of provincial regulators, we are sacrificing our ability to achieve actual environmental protections apparently to gain some sort of wastewater feather in our cap.

News flash: no one, in all of Canada, is looking to Winnipeg as a wastewater-treatment leader. We get national attention for the severity of our sewage spills, not for the shining example of our wastewater treatment. LWF has, on more than one occasion, been laughed at in disbelief when we describe our non-compliant phosphorus levels to other water people across the country.

Despite a lot of posturing over the last 20 years, provincial regulators in Manitoba have not succeeded in either achieving or enforcing their own environmental rules. Instead, compliance deadlines come and go, while regulators seemingly turn a blind eye to the realities of ballooning costs and the impacts of chronic non-compliance.

Former environment minister Rochelle Squires has called provincial efforts to upgrade Winnipeg’s north end plant “the most convoluted, unco-ordinated and contentious bit of political wrangling,” she has seen. Looking back, she now sees merit in the chemical phosphorus reduction solution — an approach she recognizes is supported by robust scientific evidence and countless real-world examples.

I can only hope that Manitoba’s new environment minister won’t wait till after she’s out of office to support the solutions that LWF and our members have championed — solutions that the city itself has invested in to protect Lake Winnipeg. With a commitment to evidence-based environmental policy, Minister Tracy Schmidt can ensure her government is the one to finally achieve phosphorus compliance at the province’s largest wastewater treatment plant.

Imagine that.

Let’s save “state-of-the-art” for our health care system. Let’s save “state-of-the-art” for our education system, our universities and our research facilities.

Because here in Winnipeg, simple, straightforward, compliance in our wastewater treatment would actually be quite remarkable.

Alexis Kanu is the executive director of the Lake Winnipeg Foundation.