Iqaluit sewage plant debacle spreads south

CHARLOTTE PETRIE

One of the engineers who worked on Iqaluit’s non-functioning sewage treatment facility has resurfaced in a small U.S. community. And, perhaps coincidentally, the sewage plant in Pinal County, Arizona, is experiencing many of the same seepage and smell problems that plagued Iqaluit’s plant.

The City of Iqaluit is still searching for a solution to its sewage woes after hiring Hill Murray and Associates in 1999 to build a state-of-the-art microfiltration treatment plant.
Instead of a brilliant new system the city ended up with one serious mess on its hands.

After spending more than $7 million, residents were left with a facility incapable of treating the amount of sewage generated. It had serious design defects, problematic and possibly dangerous electrical systems and needed at least $3.3 million worth of repairs.

While the plant sits collecting dust, the city continues to use its old sewage lagoon, which has caused serious discharges of untreated effluent into the sea for years.

But Trevor Hill, an engineer and partner in Hill Murray and Associates, is now the president of Algonquin Water Resources of America (AWAR).

The new firm has owned and managed the Gold Canyon wastewater treatment facility in Pinal County, Arizona, since July 2001. The facility serves the community of Gold Canyon and several other smaller communities in the vicinity.

Residents have been complaining for months about the abominable stench, alleged illegal discharge of effluent, unacceptably high levels of nitrogen in the wastewater, and a proposal to expand the facility to twice its current operational size.

AWAR has received notices of violation from the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality (ADEQ) on two separate occasions for allegedly discharging more than half a million gallons of wastewater since January.

It’s not certain either violation will hit AWAR in the pocketbook, but Steven Owens, the director of the ADEQ, told a newspaper in Pinal County last month that “there is a high probability [the company] will be fined.”

Patrick Gibbons, a spokesperson for ADEQ, echoed Owens’ concern, but pointed out that if the expansion proposal is approved the issue of illegal discharging will end.

“If the facility expansion is approved [it could] deal with that water through processing in reuse,” Gibbons said.

It’s a fairly typical development in Arizona, where sewage facilities are often built to minimum standards in rapidly growing areas. As a result, communities are always playing catch-up with the infrastructure, Gibbons explained.

The facility has changed ownership three times, making AWAR the latest owner-operator, while many of the facility’s challenges precede AWAR by many years, Gibbons added.

“Their original plan was to do three things,” Gibbons explained, to reuse water for a nearby golf course, recharge water in some recharge basins and discharge any residue into a nearby wash.

“The problem is the facility has not been able to keep up with that plan. In times when the flow is very high because of rainstorms, the flow can be much higher than works within their plan. As a result, they don’t need to go to reuse, their recharge basins can’t hold it all and they’re forced to discharge.

“Really, they need to come up with a better plan for controlling that.”

If the expansion proposal goes through, Gibbons said it will force the company to invest in major improvements to the facility, ultimately improving the situation for local residents.
But residents fear an expansion, coupled with illegal dumping, will attract gnats, mosquitoes and sewer rats. Some people living within 1,000 feet or less of the facility are already complaining about the smell, saying it has prevented them from enjoying their backyards.

The fear has united a good chunk of the community in protest. They have seen for themselves the grayish, foamy wastewater being discharged into their local environment.
It’s a tale all too familiar to Iqaluit residents, and sadly, to residents of the small British Columbia community of Powell River as well.

Both communities suffered years of escalating costs, long lists of deficiencies and repeated failures to meet safety and permit standards.

Hill Murray and Associates never saw the inside of a courtroom as a result of their bungled work in Powell River or Iqaluit.

Powell River municipal officials settled their outstanding contractual matters and moved on.

But Iqaluit municipal administrators, in the fall of 1999, cut a $2.8-million cheque to Hill Murray, despite a report from Dillon Consulting Ltd. that cited serious structural flaws in the company’s Iqaluit treatment plant.

Trevor Hill did not return a telephone message left by Nunatsiaq News.