Sewage-plant deal welcome, but long overdue

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 29/08/2022 (1182 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Winnipeg is a city of rivers, and Manitoba is a land of lakes. These waterways are a picturesque part of daily life that have supported trade, commerce and recreation throughout the province’s history.

In recent decades, they have also been the site of distressing pollution, owing to lagging infrastructure and human activity. This month, all three levels of government finally solidified a deal that will help turn the tide on this growing ecological disaster.

The North End Water Pollution Control Centre is Winnipeg’s oldest and largest sewage treatment plant. Built in 1937, it handles 70 per cent of the city’s wastewater. In 2002, the Main Street plant experienced a massive overflow that saw 427 million litres of untreated sewage discharged into the Red River over a 57-hour period.

The event triggered a provincial investigation which, among other things, called on the city to reduce the nutrients flowing from its sewage-handling plants in order to comply with its Environment Act licence.

While upgrades have been made to the south- and west-end treatment centres in the last 20 years, the north end plant has languished amid meandering funding deals and damnable political delays — all the while continuing to pump harmful amounts of phosphorus and nitrogen into Lake Winnipeg via the Red River. This past April, 1.6 billion litres of partially treated sewage dumped into the river during a torrential rainstorm.

Upgrades to the facility are projected to cost $1.8 billion and are set to roll out in three phases.

The first phase, which will improve the power supply and wastewater pumps, is funded and underway. On Aug. 16, the city, province and federal governments announced a $552-million tripartite deal to fund the second phase, which includes construction of a new biosolids facility that promises to reduce the amount of phosphorus in the plant’s effluent to one milligram per litre or less.

This is a significant victory for Lake Winnipeg, which has previously earned the dubious distinction of most threatened lake in the world, owing to its high nutrient loads and giant recurring algae blooms.

The north end sewage treatment plant is the largest single-point source of phosphorus flowing into the lake.

This recent funding agreement is a win; the fact that it took so long to get here is an embarrassment.

Previous governments have dawdled on the costly but necessary project for years, with former premier Brian Pallister’s apparent aversion to co-operating with his federal counterparts having creating the most recent logjam. Less than a year after taking charge, Premier Heather Stefanson has helped push through a deal that seemed doomed to the eternal backburner. It’s another example of Ms. Stefanson’s ongoing effort to distance herself from her predecessor and repair relations with municipal and federal counterparts.

Collaboration and forward momentum are reasons to celebrate, but the project isn’t swimming along just yet. Inflation and increased scope have bumped up the cost for this phase of upgrades, and it’s unclear who’s going to foot the additional $360 million bill.

Once shovels are finally in the dirt, construction is expected to take at least eight years — during which time severe storms are likely to become more frequent as a result of climate change, increasing the chance of raw sewage being discharged into our waterways.

Officials need to capture the momentum of the moment and approve funding for the final phase of this integral infrastructure project. Without continued collaboration, the future of one of the world’s largest freshwater lakes is at risk of being flushed down the drain.