For nearly a year, the Buffalo Pound Water Treatment Plant has been a beehive of activity as hundreds of orange- and yellow-clad workers have been constructing new buildings and installing modern technology.
Watching all the activity has been Ryan Johnson, president/CEO of the Buffalo Pound Water Treatment Corporation. He has been involved with the project in some capacity since the beginning, including during the years-long pre-planning stages.
Clad in a yellow vest and blue helmet, Johnson graciously gave the Moose Jaw Express a tour of the expanding venue and discussed the changes with a knowledgeable command of what was happening.
“I’m enjoying it (the project). It’s a lot of work, but it’s going well … ,” he said. “It’s exciting. It’s a career highlight. It’s the most important thing I’ve ever done. I'm just the project cheerleader ... . (Staff) are doing the hard work."
New construction
Only three new buildings are being constructed during the plant renewal project, including a new administration centre. This is where offices, laboratories and maintenance shops will be under one roof instead of “scattered all over the place.”
Work crews will demolish the old admin building but will use the basement for storage and as a warehouse.
Contractors are building two new summer lagoons, where processed wastewater will be stored. The pits will retain the water longer so organic materials can settle to the bottom while the clean water will rise to the top. The plant can then pipe that water back to the lake.
The plant will have six lagoons but only needs five to function. Yet, the corporation must still annually “de-sludge” the pits by removing all organic material and shipping it to the Moose Jaw landfill.
Johnson noted that the plant had spent roughly $1 million to ship about 12,500 tonnes of sludge to the dump, based on costs of $80 per tonne.
Cleaning agents
Another new building will hold chemicals such as chlorine. That structure will be on the site’s south side and not in the middle of the complex. Johnson was grateful for this change since it meant staff wouldn’t be exposed to chlorine gas if a leak occurred.
For the past 38 years, the current chemical building has been regenerating carbon for the granular-activated carbon (GAC) filters. But with the conversion to biologically activated carbon filters, there is no more need for the structure.
“If we did nothing, we’d have to spend $10 million to upgrade (the chem building anyway),” said Johnson. “There’s no point in piece-mealing it; we ran it good.”
Moving inside the plant, Johnson’s vast knowledge of the existing equipment and the new gear was on display.
“I love this stuff,” he said with a smile.
Important technology
Perhaps the biggest— and most important — technological change is the addition of five new dissolved air floatation (DAF) units with room for a sixth unit. This new technology will help the plant produce 250 megalitres (250 million litres) per day, possibly increasing to 350 mL/day “if unexpected growth in the area” occurs.
The DAF tanks house air saturators that inject billions of bubbles into the water — seven microbubbles per particle — and create a microscopic fizzing and popping similar to opening a soft drink — but on an industrial scale that can clean millions of litres of water, explained Johnson.
The water initially looks “like a really muddy milkshake” because of all the clay, algae and other materials, but as the air bubbles work, that brown water turns white.
The tanks are 20 feet deep and the bubbles burst out of the pipes like a pressure sprayer — but with hundreds of nozzles instead of one.
While one DAF unit was operating during the tour, Johnson was excited that experts — including internationally renowned water process “guru” Dave Pernitsky — would be on site in early June to test the system. Barring any problems, the three experts could give the go-ahead for the units to start working.
“The plant has never run at 200 megalitres before. I’ll be retired before it hits 250 megalitres,” chuckled Johnson, noting only three units would be required to operate most summers.
A long life
Another new building is the ozone building and load-lift pumps. This technology will help deal with the taste and odour of the water. Currently, a giant yellow crane sits in a pit surrounded by thousands of rebar poles.
“It’s an incredible amount of steel,” Johnson said. “There will be a lot of tanks and vessels (inside the new building). The walls can be punched out if they need to expand it in the future.”
The plant will likely exist for another 100 years, but it needs to be refreshed every 25 years, he continued. The concrete from the original 1955 plant and subsequent expansions is still good, but the technology keeps improving.
“There’s no reason they can’t keep adding capacity in one direction and process (equipment) in another direction,” he said, adding, “I want to leave the plant in good hands for the next 25 years.”
