Selkirk, Manitoba’s $35.2 million wastewater treatment plant will help improve the lives of citizens and the environment for decades to come starting the summer of 2021.
The new plant will be able to produce an exceptionally high quality of effluent as well as handle the city’s current population and up to 11,000 more.
“The city’s new wastewater treatment plant has been designed to meet our needs today as well as into the future,” said Chief Administrative Officer Duane Nicol in a press release. “Selkirk’s population could more than double and the new plant could handle it. Our vision is to be a regional service provider and we’re prepared for that as well.”
Early construction for the plant began in 2018. It is designed to undertake expansion easily and economically if needed, as well as built to keep operation costs as low as possible.
“I can speak for my utility team that the new Selkirk wastewater plant is using innovative technology that will open the doors to be able to accept wastewater from other communities to come,” said Raven Sharma, Selkirk’s utilities manager. “The utility team and I are prepared and very dedicated to our responsibilities in treating water and wastewater. We will be very busy in the next couple of months commissioning and fine tuning the new wastewater plant.”
The plant will use two sets of membrane filtration cartridge units, each capable of handling 6,000,000 litres per day which totals to 12,000,000 litres per day.
“We have designed other features into the plan for even more capacity expansion beyond that, should we need it over the expected 50-year life of this facility,” said Nicol. “This means we have the capacity to grow without having to burden the ratepayers of today with the maintenance costs of infrastructure we don’t currently need. We think long-term in Selkirk.”
Space for a third set has already been prepared. With an additionally $1 million investment, capacity would increase by 50% to accommodate the growing city’s population.
(Nicole Wong, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, WINNIPEG SUN)
