Problems with aging equipment at Pentictonās wastewater treatment plant have forced the city to move up parts of a five-year replacement plan.
City engineer Ian Chapman said problems with a fermenter and a blower in the bioreactor have forced the sewer utility to rethink its 2013 capital budget, which included a limited amount of funds for a short-term repair, allowing the fermenter to stay in operation for four to six more years.
But when the utility put the repair job out to tender, city staff discovered the fix would cost more than double what they had planned for. Rather than pay out a high price for a short-term fix, Chapman said they decided to move up a planned full rebuild of the unit from 2019 to 2014.
āIt will either be a new structure altogether or a refurbishment of an existing tank,ā said Chapman. The cost of the full upgrade is estimated to be $1,925,000, which will be drawn from the sewer utilityās accumulated reserves. For 2013, Chapman asked council to reallocate $200,000 for the pre-design and detailed design for the fermenter.
āThe sewer utility fund is certainly one of our healthier utility funds,ā said chief financial officer Doug Leahy. According to Chapmanās report, the 2012 accumulated surplus is $7,396,000, which is to be utilized for future upgrades to the wastewater treatment plant.
āThe equipment we are looking at replacing now was not part of the recent upgrade. It was left over and we knew we would have to get to it and the time is now,ā said Chapman.
The recent upgrade addressed about 75 per cent of all the plantās infrastructure but funds werenāt available to do all the big ticket items at the time, though they knew that elements like the fermenter and clarifier would be coming up in the next several years.
āIt just happens that the state of the fermenter is such that we just canāt wait. Based on the tender we received earlier, there isnāt a quick temporary fix,ā said Chapman. āWe need to spend the money now.ā
In addition to problems with the fermenter, the bearings failed on one of the blowers in the bioreactor earlier this year. But while studying the costs to repair it, Chapman said they also took a look at the efficiency of the existing units.
āWe discovered that the existing blowers, even in repaired state, are relatively inefficient, in fact they are very inefficient,ā said Chapman. āWe could purchase a new blower and based on the projected energy savings, we would have a payback of five years.ā
A new blower will cost $170,000, adding up a total of $370,000 in changes to the sewer utilityās 2013 budget. Summing up councilās position on the changes Coun. John Vassilaki said that not only was it reasonable, but the city had little choice.
āIt has to be done before we have sewage coming up our bathtubs,ā said Vassilaki.
Ā