Iqaluit $9.4M short for waste water treatment plant upgrades

The City of Iqaluit is flushing out options on how to deal with its wastewater treatment plant,which has has been underscrutiny from the Federal Government for not meeting cleanlinessstandards.

On Tuesday night, consulting firm Stantec presented a few options to the city on how to upgrade theplant, the leastexpensive of which would cost $26.5 million dollars to install a secondarytreatment system.

"I think we have no choice but to proceed with the secondary wastewater management system,"said Iqaluit MayorMary Wilman. "We've known this was coming and we realize we need a propertreatment system. We've always wanted a proper one."

The proposed system by Stantec is called a Moving Bed Biofilm Reactor and comes with a $1.1million per year operating cost. Other recommendations by the firm included upgrading the plant'sseptage receiving system, and preliminary and primary screening systems.

The city has only set aside $17.1 million for this project, which it based on the most up to dateinformation it had before Tuesday's presentation. The money came from the federal gas tax andthe Government of Nunavut's block funding.

Councillor Terry Dobbin was the first to address the $9.4 million shortfall at Tuesday's meeting,and given the city's financial struggles, he questioned whether the Federal Government will offerany help.

Councillor Joanasie Akumalik said there are some other avenues to explore for cash.

"The regulatory bodies and the funding agencies is where I think we need to start looking,"Akumalik said. "We have to sit down, talk about it and come up with a plan. Start communicatingwith the regulatory bodies and get them on board and let them know we're going through financialrestraint."

Right now, the plant only has a primary treatment system that filters out solid waste and dischargesthe rest into Frobisher Bay. When the plant is offline, sewage is sent to a lagoon where it's filteredand cleaned over time.

The discharge from the lagoon isn't as clean as from the plant, and the city used to use this methodbefore installing the primary system. But as the population grew, the lagoon couldn't handle thecapacity.

The city says only in extreme cases where there's a blockage is raw sewage ever pumpedinto Frobisher Bay.

In 2013, the Department of Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development tested the effluentdischarge from the plant and determined it was technically toxic. AANDC told the city it wouldface possible fines of up to $100,000 a day and jail time for officials if it doesn't comply by the endof 2018.

The prospect of facing those penalties have since subsided since the city took steps towardscompliance. Iqaluit's water license with the Nunavut Water Board expired in July 2012.