Hamilton globe makeover gets underway

Hamilton’s distinctive blue-andyellow globe at the Woodward Avenue treatment plant is getting a $4.4-million makeover.

Scaffolding will be going up this week and will take more than a month to be installed, said Clorinda Pagliari, a communications officer for the city. She said the paint removal will start within the next few weeks. The globe itself, a co-generation methane plant, will be off-line and the stairs and valve have been removed.

The expense was incorporated into the 2017 water and wastewater budget. The federal government is contributing 50 per cent of the cost, or $2 million, while the province is chipping in with $1 million. The project needs to be completed by the March 31, 2018, to meet Ottawa’s timeline.

Pagliari said repainting the globe isn’t scheduled to begin until December.

Shutting down the globe could cost the Hamilton Renewable Power Inc. about $31,831 in 2017 in lost income.

The original plan, said Tom Chessman, senior vice-president for Hamilton Renewable Energy Inc., was to start the work in the summer, but the procurement process took longer than expected.

Chessman said officials are looking at a “workaround” using the digester to keep the co-generation process operating without shutting down the operation.

The sphere, built in 1970 for Horton Steel Works Ltd., is a pressure vessel for the storage of methane gas, a byproduct of anaerobic sludge digestion.

The 1.6-megawatt co-generation plant, started in 2006 by the city, uses methane to generate electricity and heat. The electricity is sold to the Ontario Power Authority under a 20-year agreement, while the heat is used for facility heating and as part of the wastewater treatment process.

An inspection of the sphere found it to be structurally sound, but it needed to be repainted because the facility had deteriorated, said officials. Once it is repainted, officials said, the facility could last up to 30 years.