Piloting the use of BioCord Reactors at the Gift Lake Metis Settlement lagoon

 

The Gift Lake Metis Settlement operates two sewage lagoons for the treatment and storage of wastewater from the surrounding community. In recent years, our wastewater treatment lagoon facility has experienced challenges maintaining an effluent quality that consistently meets its ammonia and BOD discharge limits of 1 mg/L and 25 mg/L, respectively. As a small community (population <1000) located in Northern Alberta, Gift Lake has a limited capacity for significant infrastructure builds and operator oversight to upgrade our facility. However, improvements in the treatment system are necessary to ensure the facility can maintain an effluent in compliance with WSER and AEP standards, and to increase its capacity to allow for continued compliance in lieu of future population growth and reduced wintertime performance. 

The Gift Lake Metis Settlement is therefore seeking funding from the GMF-FCM program to help implement a low-energy pilot project/study in partnership with Bishop Water Technologies and TeckEra Consulting, using BioCord Reactors for enhanced wastewater treatment. 

The BioCord Reactor System is an innovative, low-impact, energy-efficient biofilm technology that can be utilized by the Gift Lake Lagoons to enhance contaminant (organics/nitrogen) removals, improve cold-weather treatment, and prevent washout of wastewater microorganisms during peak flows. Unlike other similar attached growth  technologies such as MBBR systems, BioCord Reactors can be retrofitted directly into an existing lagoon or basin, allowing for improved treatment within the existing plant footprint. Therefore, space constraints are rarely an issue for BioCord Reactor Systems which do not require additional tankage for operation. Furthermore, BioCord Reactors utilize a unique low-energy fine bubble diffuser to efficiently deliver oxygen and mixing capacity to the developing biofilm, allowing for higher oxygen transfer rates and nitrogen removals than competitors. Because low-energy compressors are used to aerate these diffusers, operational costs are significantly lower than similar/more traditional systems that require blowers to aerate a system and keep media in suspension. In addition to lower operational costs, BioCord Reactor Systems are also typically more economical in terms of capital investment for full scale systems, and, due to their simplicity of operation and limited number of mechanical/moving parts,  require minimal maintenance/operator oversight.

Due to the performance and economic advantages of BioCord compared to similar biofilm technologies, Gift Lake Metis Settlement proposes to implement a BioCord Reactor pilot/demonstration project that would verify the technical and financial feasibility of a full-scale lagoon upgrade, which would bring effluent concentrations down to below the long-term ammonia and BOD objectives and provide increased capacity for future increases in flow and/or loadings.  

The pilot study would consist of an installation of fifteen (15) aerated BioCord Reactors directly within the existing cell, with treatment efficiencies monitored over a period of one (1) year. The objective of the pilot would be to demonstrate and quantify the increased BOD and ammonia removals throughout the yearly seasonal conditions and fluctuating wastewater characteristics experienced at a lagoon facility in Northern Alberta. Piloting this system in Gift Lake’s unique climatic and geographical conditions will provide insight on the best operating regime and surface area/aeration requirement for optimal biological treatment in facilities located Northern Western Canada. Installing the BioCord Reactors within the lagoon will additionally provide more valid and scalable data, and allow for refinement of the full-scale system design operating within the conditions observed during the pilot.