Town of Coaldale holds ribbon-cutting ceremony for its newly-upgraded wastewater treatment facility

On October 13, 2022, the Town of Coaldale held a ribbon cutting ceremony to mark the grand re-opening of its newly upgraded wastewater treatment facility. Members of Coaldale Town Council (past and present) and MLA Grant Hunter were in attendance, along with representatives from MPE Engineering Ltd., Chandos Construction Ltd., and Town Administration. The upgrades will accommodate the next 20 years of residential, commercial, and industrial growth in Coaldale.

Built in 1970 as a conventional lagoon and then upgraded to an aerated lagoon in 1984, Coaldale’s wastewater treatment facility was last upgraded in 2005 when it received substantial aeration and liner enhancements. Over the past decade, however, the adoption of new rigorous wastewater systems effluent regulations (WSER) by the federal government, combined with the need to expand the Town’s current facility to accommodate future growth, made upgrading the facility further a high priority for Town officials.

“Eventually, we got to a point where upgrading the facility became critical”, said Jason Siemens, Manager of Development Engineering for the Town of Coaldale. “In the Town’s 2019 Infrastructure Master Plan, wastewater treatment upgrades were identified as essential not only for satisfying the latest provincial and federal regulations and legislation, but also, for accommodating future residential, commercial, and industrial growth. Thankfully, in 2020 we were able to secure approximately $4.4 million of provincial grant funding from the Alberta Water/Wastewater Partnership, which positioned the Town to get the ball rolling and break ground on the upgrades in August, 2021.”

Fast forward to just over one year later and the Town’s wastewater treatment facility upgrades project is nearly complete. “The Town of Coaldale wastewater treatment facility upgrades project had two primary objectives,” said Town of Coaldale Mayor, Jack Van Rijn, at the ribbon cutting ceremony. “The first was to meet the latest wastewater effluent regulations adopted by both federal and provincial governments, and the second was to accommodate the next 20 years of residential and commercial growth in Coaldale. With both objectives now met, we can officially declare the project a success and Coaldale a place with the wastewater treatment infrastructure necessary to facilitate development, including continued growth in our industrial sector, for decades to come.”