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until it’s finished, probably in mid-August. Some of the equipment and operators are coming from Quebec, while Kings County transport trucking companies have been hired to haul the sludge to a New Brunswick facility.
Quinn said trucks would be crossing the Harvest Moon Trail, a popular active transportation route, predominantly between 5 and 10 a.m. daily. However, there is potential for truck traffic 24/7 until the work is completed.
Quinn said they had planned to undertake the desludging earlier, but bids came in much higher than expected, and they had also hoped to be able to tackle the first and second lagoons at the same time.
Approximately $2.2 million has been budgeted for the upcoming phase of the project, which has received provincial environmental approval. The current desludging work is expected to take about four weeks to complete.
It involves desludging the first lagoon, which Quinn said is between four and five acres in size and is responsible for most of the odour problem.
It’s likely that the desludging and aeration work for the second lagoon will take place next year.
THE DESLUDGING PROCESS
The desludging involves a dredging machine that will go in between the rows of aerators to scoop out sludge, which will be pumped to a centrifuge that will remove most of the water.
“It should make it relatively odourless or have just a mild compost smell, sort of like your green bin, basically,”
Quinn said about the lagoon.
He pointed out that, unfortunately, the desludging process itself is expected to generate some odour. Quinn said they ask that residents please be patient, as the project is a huge undertaking, but one that is expected to result in the odour subsiding.
Public Works manager Aaron Dondale said they hope to be able to keep the first lagoon operating at full capacity during the desludging process, but there is valve infrastructure in place that will allow them to bypass it if necessary.
“One of the pieces of equipment needs a bit of buoyancy, it floats to some degree, so maintaining the water level can keep them working efficiently,” Dondale said.
The work includes upgrades to service roads and the construction of a temporary weighing and loading area near the pit at the end of Jones Road. Dondale said on July 6 that it would take a little bit of time to get the weigh scales certified.
Quinn said a plastic liner would be installed to keep
everything contained, and the loading area will be decommissioned and disassembled once the desludging work is completed.
He said the next phase would involve replacing the aeration system, which is reaching the end of its lifespan, but it will probably be another year or two before the overall project is completed.
ABOUT THE ODOUR
Quinn, who lives in New Minas and has been experiencing the smell, said there are a number of factors contributing to the odour problem.
One reason is that the regional plant takes in effluent from several major industrial operations. Another is that we’ve had hotter temperatures earlier in the past two or three years, and more extreme temperature fluctuations in the spring, which acts to throw bacterial levels out of balance.
Dondale said it seems there has been more prevailing wind from the north over the past few years, which is acting to help carry the smell from the
New Minas plant into populated areas.
He said there have also been odour problems at the Hants Border, Wolfville, Aylesford and Berwick sewage treatment plants this spring.
Some of the contributing factors there are the same as those affecting the regional plant, although he pointed out that there isn’t the same problem with garbage infiltrating the lagoons at the regional plant as there was in Hants Border, for example.
He said that when too much trash enters and plugs filtration systems, a plant goes into bypass mode and material starts entering the lagoon that bacteria can’t easily break down.
Dondale said that the majority of fast food restaurants in Kings County are located uphill from the regional plant, along Commercial Street. There’s a pumping station at the end of Jones Road where a lot of the fat from the restaurants accumulates.
“Bacteria can break down the fat, but it takes time,” Dondale said.
He said other nearby industrial operations add other unique inputs, such as flour, vegetable shortening and potato peels, starch and silt.
“You can make a case that industry makes it tough for wastewater plants, but at the same time, we need industry,” Dondale said.
Quinn said they work with industry to support them while trying to ensure that things don’t get thrown too far out of whack with the wastewater, but it is a “balancing act” and this has always been a struggle with the regional treatment plant.
Dondale said wastewater treatment systems are essentially an ecology, one that has to be curated and cared for.