August 28, 2008

WILLIAM CONWAY/PROGRESS PHOTOGRAPHY

Kenaidan Contracting Ltd. is working on the expansion to the Barrie water treatment plant. Various stages of work for the plant, pumping station and biosolids storage facilities are under way.

Barrie, Ontario aggressively expands water and wastewater systems

PETER KENTER

correspondent

BARRIE, ON

The City of Barrie is growing and its water and wastewater system is growing along with it.

The city is in the midst of three major infrastructure projects that will provide much needed additional capacity for current and future needs: a $108-million surface water treatment plant and low lift pumping station; $87-million water pollution control plant expansion, and $23-million expansion of the city’s biosolids storage facility.

Barrie traditionally relies on groundwater for its water supply. To expand its options, the city is investing in a new system to draw water from adjacent Kempenfelt Bay, which requires the construction of a surface water treatment plant and low lift pumping station. The raw water intake which draws from about a kilometre off-shore was completed in 2007. The current project involves construction of the plant, pumping station, reservoir and administration building by Kenaidan Contracting Ltd.

“It’s basically a greenfield project that represents a new water supply for the city,” says Martin Gravel, an engineer with Genivar Ontario Inc. of Markham, the project’s engineering contractor. “The treatment plant is just over a kilometre from shore, so the water travels about two kilometres for treatment.”

The system uses membranes and a granular activated carbon system to treat the water before it is chlorinated. “We try to convert as much lake water into usable water as possible,” says Gravel. “The more water that is treated to drinking water standards, the less water that needs to be treated as wastewater.”

The plant has the capacity to treat as much as 240 megalitres of water per day. “In phase one, we’ll be treating 60 megalitres per day,” says Gravel. “The system will expand as the city requires more water.”

A 20 megalitre holding tank is similarly divided into two sections with half devoted to water storage and the other half to chlorination. As demands rise, the tank will be fully used.

Kenaidan is also the general contractor on the city’s water pollution control plant, which is being expanded from a treatment capacity of 54 to 76 megalitres per day. The expansion will reduce hydraulic bottlenecks while minimizing the need for pumping. The project includes expanding the raw sewage pump station and secondary effluent pump station. It also involves adding: two aeration tanks; a secondary clarifier; four rotating biological contactor process trains; two tertiary sand filters; an ultraviolet disinfection unit; a primary anaerobic digester; an odour control system; and a standby diesel generator.

Because of the city’s continued reliance on groundwater, special care has to be taken to protect the area’s upper aquifer during construction, which is slated for completion in summer 2010.

The increased water usage will also require an expansion of the city’s biosolids facility in Oro-Medonte, about 25 kilometres away.

“The city acquired more land central to the farming community where the sludge is eventually used for agricultural purposes,” says Sinclair Garner, Vice President of CH2M HILL Canada Ltd., contract administrator. Storage of biosolids is particularly important during the winter and during wet weather. “We’re putting in additional storage and specialized decanting cells to get better density sludge and to get more into the fields.”

The project includes the addition of one covered rectangular storage tank and three covered rectangular dewatering cells, underground piping between the storage tank and cells, and a truck loading and unloading system. Construction is expected to be complete in October, 2009.

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