City of Selkirk New Wastewater Treatment Plant

The City of Selkirk will build a new wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) that will allow the city to meet provincial nutrient removal regulations that came into effect in 2017. Although the City of Selkirk initially considered an upgrade to its outdated WWTP, a new build would cost almost the same as a retrofit to the existing facility. The new WWTP will produce high quality effluent thus minimizing the negative impact the city's wastewater has on the Red River and Lake Winnipeg. This project strongly aligns with the city’s Official and Climate Change Action Plans, as well as other municipal sustainability plans and strategies. The proposed technology for the project is a membrane bioreactor (MBR) process, which will provide wastewater treatment over and above the minimum requirements. The treated effluent may supplement industrial and city uses where potable water is not necessary. Accounting for the increasing frequency of intense storms in the region, the new design will transfer/pipe untreated sewage into a decant lagoon until flow at the plant is reduced and operations are fully restored. The plant will include sensors in order to continually monitor the systems’ performance, and will have a fully equipped accredited lab for staff to do their own testing to ensure highest precision and accuracy of results. The new design also includes a number of energy efficiency and water conservation measures, which include variable frequency drive (VFD) motors, LED lighting and low flow toilets and sinks. The plant will operate only on electrical power with no dependency on natural gas. The city will save on decommissioning costs with the reuse of the existing UV system, decant lagoon, piping and lift station. The new WWTP, which will treat up to 1.7 million cubic meters of wastewater each year, will improve the quality of wastewater by reducing carbonaceous biochemical oxygen demand (CBOD5) by 10%, total suspended solids (TSS) by 89%, phosphorus by 76%, nitrogen by 37% and completely remove E.coli. In addition, the reuse of the cleaner wastewater effluent will also reduce the water consumption from the aquifer and help attract industry that would benefit from the more affordable treated effluent as part of their operations. In terms of energy use, modeling supports the reduction of 159 tonnes C02e/year of GHG emission with the switch from natural gas to electricity. The scale of the new WWTP will allow the neighboring municipality of St. Andrews to hook up to the Selkirk's sewer system, which could provide an additional source of revenue to the City. Finally, Selkirk may further enhance the impact of the project by creating a training facility for students in the water/wastewater field of study, in collaboration with Red River College and the University of Manitoba. The knowledge value of the project relates to the integrated wastewater and stormwater system approach and technology that offer a high replication potential for municipalities looking to improve the water quality releases into major water bodies. (Project description from original funding application)