September 8, 2009

RON STANG

Windsor's Lou Romano Water Reclamation Plant expansion is a multi-stage $110 million project.

European technology at the heart of Windsor, Ontario treatment system

RON STANG

correspondent

WINDSOR, ONT.

At close inspection it looks like a very pebbled beach. But you wouldn’t want to walk on it.

“It’s almost like a quicksand,” Tony Bietola, the City of Windsor’s project administrator for the $110 million Lou Romano Water Reclamation Plant expansion, says.

The clay-like material is known as Biolite. It was trucked up from Cleveland Ohio, near where it was mined and baked into granular material. And this “beach” is surrounded by four concrete walls, enclosing a 1506-square-foot BAFF (Biological Aerated Filtration Facility) cell, containing the Biolite to a depth of 3.9 metres.

At the Lou Romano plant there are 16 such cells. They form the guts of the plant’s new secondary treatment process.

Biolite and its BAFF system were developed by Degremont Technologies, the France-based multinational known for its water and sludge treatment worldwide. Its Canadian subsidiary is in Montreal.

“We developed the (Biolite) concept using something like lava — it’s very light and we can clean it easily,” says Jean Yves Bergel, Degremont’s technical vice-president.

The patented treatment process in the BAFF is called BIOFOR (Biological Filter Oxygenated Reactor). It treats sludge pumped up through the Biolite where the bacteria contained in the sludge adheres to the pebble medium. The cleansed water then flows into a channel on its way to be treated by ultraviolet light, the final stage before being released into the Detroit River.

The Degremont system cost just under $13 million. The facility is the second largest in Canada after Quebec City’s, which has 52 cells.

Originally opened in 1969 the west end Lou Romano plant is just finishing its third, and largest expansion, introducing secondary treatment. (The city’s smaller east side Little River pollution control plant has activated sludge secondary treatment.) The plant is named after Lou Romano, now retired, who was the city’s director of pollution control for 30 years.

The secondary facility has been up and running since late 2007 but there is still construction to do on site in the multiyear expansion, which started in 2003.

The build was tendered over six contracts, the first being excavation and the driving of 1300 H piles 75 feet down to bedrock. They support the BAFF cells.

The second was for the BAFF, a new supplementary diesel generating station and a primary pumping station which includes four Archimedes pumps to push the water up from the settling basins to the BAFF cells.

Next was expansion of the primary settling basins or clarifiers. Two 36.5 m diameter concrete basins were added to six existing ones. And a larger 52 m diameter basin was constructed.

The sludge that accumulates in the basins is pumped to a dewatering facility, spun in centrifuges (two new centrifuges included in a separate contract), and the dry residue dumped into hoppers. The city contracts with Prism Berlie Ltd. to remove it to a nearby plant where it’s made into pellets for fertilizer.

Next was contracting for the ultraviolet disinfection facility, which eliminates the need for chlorine. Windsor used to add, as a final step, chlorine to its primary treated water.

Then there was roadwork and landscaping.

Still ongoing is the replacement of a conveyor system for the dewatering plant and replacing the coarse bar screens to remove larger objects like rags at the beginning of the process so they don’t damage plant equipment.

Also being installed is a receiving inlet chamber for wastewater from the adjoining Town of LaSalle, which contributed $25 million of the expansion cost.

Contributions of $28 million were also received through the Canadian Ontario Infrastructure Program (COIP).

Still to tender, likely this fall, is work to modernize the administration building, control room and laboratory, as well as, other related wastewater processes.

Besides improving treatment the expanded plant can handle almost twice the water capacity as it did previously at 273 million litres per day. Outwardly the buildings adhere to the neat, red brick finish that characterizes the original plant.

“We’re happy with the work up to now but it has been some time to complete such a large multi-contracted project,” Bietola said.

“This plant is good news for the city, with built-in capability to handle higher waste loads in the years to come.”

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