Transforming London into a wastewater centre of excellence

Sewage is generally thought of as a liability. However a unique program uniting the Southern Ontario Water Consortium (SOWC), the City of London and Western University intends to transform waste streams into a valuable commodity with the establishment of an $8-million wastewater centre of excellence.

The London, Ont. project repurposes an existing wastewater treatment building into a real-world test laboratory, allowing up to four clients simultaneous access to the municipal waste stream. The facility will be located at London's Greenway Pollution Control Plant.

"People who are testing state-of-the-art wastewater technologies have a lot of trouble gaining access to wastewater treatment plants," says Geordie Gauld, division manager, Wastewater Treatment Operations at the City of London. "The plants are reluctant to let them move their equipment in and divert the waste flow, and each new application requires individual permitting."

SOWC and London both saw an opportunity in a former dewatering building at Greenway that contained end-of-life equipment as the city shifted toward more advanced biosolids treatment technologies. The Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario (FedDev) provided about $4.4 million for the project and the City of London invested approximately $3.8 million.

The facility was designed by Stantec Consulting Ltd. Construction work was contracted to HIRA General Contractors which worked in a tight timeline between closure of the building in July 2013 and a substantial completion date of March 2014 to remove existing equipment, repair the roof and refurbish the building to operate as a test facility. Anticipated commissioning is scheduled for June.

"A lot of the work involved directing the flow to the individual bays using overhead piping, and installing valves and controls," says Gauld. "The result is basically plug-and-play. The client will come into one of four independent, secure bays and receive access to up one million gallons of wastewater flows per day, with the streams ranging across six levels of quality from raw sewage to sludges and treated effluent. When they're finished, the wastewater will be re-introduced into the system."

The facility bays will be pre-permitted for testing. Researchers working at the site will have access to the city's technical staff and to assistance from the academic resources of water treatment specialists at Western University and other specialties through the partner universities of SOWC.

The city also hopes to see wastewater treatment technology companies set up shop in the city to take advantage of the facility.

The London project is part of a broader SOWC initiative launched in 2011 with $40 million in funding from FedDev and IBM, among other donations, to create six research and demonstration nodes involving wastewater, drinking water, watersheds, analytical techniques, sensors and ecotoxicology—the study of the effects of toxic chemicals on biological organisms.

"There's plenty of laboratory space for bench-top analysis of water and wastewater technologies, but very little access to full wastewater and water streams," notes Evelyn Allen, manager of Industry Partnership Development with SOWC. "Our intention is to create a platform for research, demonstration and commercialization of both water and wastewater technologies. With additional access to a critical mass of academic resources from universities across Southern Ontario, it will be one-stop shopping."

The London facility will work closely with the University of Guelph Wastewater Pilot Facility, a new, purpose-built complex, with the main building located at the Guelph Wastewater Treatment Plant. The $2.5-million facility was funded largely by FedDev, with a $195,000 contribution by the City of Guelph and a series of in-kind equipment donations. Facility construction was managed by the University of Guelph's Physical Resources, with Elite Construction as the design-build contractor.

"The Guelph facility is similar to that of London, but is designed to offer direct access to as much as 300 cubic metres of wastewater per day," says Allen. "It's part of a scalable approach to testing and commercializing these technologies. A new approach to wastewater might go from the laboratory bench top to a larger scale at the Guelph facility, then on to the London facility for real-world testing before commercialization."

Gauld adds that the city will keep its eye on successful pilot projects.

"There may be an opportunity to take the technologies and apply them at any of our five wastewater treatment plants," he says.

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Taxonomy

• Ecological Sanitation
• Sludge Management
• Wastewater Treatment