Kenneth Brown
of The Crossroads
Town of Kerrobert officials have seen the community’s new state-of-the-art wastewater treatment system in action and it’s passed its first test.
Living Sky Water Solutions Corp., a Saskatchewan-based company, announced on Jan. 22 that its flagship wastewater treatment system had successfully passed its first test in Kerrobert.
The system, touted as the first of its kind in North America, was announced in October 2016.
A news release states that the wastewater treatment system has a much smaller footprint than traditional wastewater treatment methods. The system is contained in a building about half the size of a tennis court, according to officials.
The system uses the town’s existing wastewater infrastructure, including its existing lagoon system, and officials claim it will increase the town’s treatment capacity by about five times. The previous treatment capacity could handle a population of 1,000 people and the new system increases capacity to 5,000 people.
The view from the entrance of a new wastewater treatment facility at Kerrobert shows the components of the state-of-the-art system.
The system treats wastewater in less than one hour, does not require filters or membranes, does not have a massive physical footprint, uses minimal power and requires less operator expertise than other traditional treatment methods.
[emember_protected for=”2″ custom_msg=’For more on this story, please see the Feb. 9 print edition of The Cross Roads.’]
Members of council, including Mayor Wayne Mock, completed a walk-through of the facility during the test in January. According to the mayor, the town’s lagoon system could not handle any further population growth, so the town needed a solution.
Ryan Van Dijk, the CEO of Living Sky Water Solutions, was quoted in the news release as saying the system produced “perfectly clear product water” within 90 minutes of being hooked up to the town’s lagoon for the first time. The company expects the treatment system to be fully operational this month.
In an interview, the CEO said the system in Kerrobert is the first of its kind, and the company has started to develop a second system and facility to serve the Town of White City and the RM of Edenwold. The company is developing cost effective modular and mobile models.
Van Dijk said the Town of Kerrobert’s engineering firm of record also had a representative on hand for the walk through during the test in January. He said the valve to let water into the facility had only been open a few hours prior to the visit.
He noted that the company did not have much time to make any adjustments, so it was a matter of seeing how well it worked on the first crack. Van Dijk said the system has been running now for three weeks without incident.
The system uses the town’s existing lagoon system as a buffer to protect the system from peak flows, he explained. Wastewater flows from the town into the primary lagoon cell, and the water is drawn into the system from the cell before the treated water is discharged back into the lagoon.
“We had a really successful walk-through,” Van Dijk said, recognizing that the test went well. “It was great to kind of get to that milestone. It has been a lot of work being the very first plant, and we wanted to make certain that we did everything right.”
He said the company had a technician at the facility to fine tune the system, and it has only been shut off to run tests. The company has remote access to the master control system in order to make adjustments from its offices in Regina.
From the company’s perspective, he said the system is considered fully completed and operational if its people do not have to be there. The company is going to train the town’s public works staff to run the system.
Van Dijk said, in terms of the system, an electrode is placed into the water and a small amount of direct electrical current is run through the electrode. The reaction creates billions of micro bubbles that separate the contaminants from the water. The contaminants either float to the top of the water in a flock or to the bottom as a sludge.
The flock and sludge are cleaned from the top and bottom of the water. The water continues to travel through additional areas with electrodes before it is filtered through an ozone and ultra violet system. In the end, it produces a Class ‘A’ reusable water and waste is returned to the lagoon.
“It’s very exciting,” the CEO said, adding that the system is not affected by temperature or by other water contaminants such as oil. “This technology, we developed it for Saskatchewan communities, so we’re ready to work with communities.”
Mayor Mock said there are six units in the facility, and only one of the units was being used during the walk through. He noted that if all six units were running, the system would be able to keep up with a population of 5,000 people, so it is reassuring for the town.
According to the mayor, it is “a pretty impressive system” that treats the wastewater in less than an hour. Another advantage is the water is clean enough that it could be put through the town’s water treatment process to produce drinking water, but that would only be necessary if the community’s drinking water supply runs out.
He said water treated by the system could become a source of revenue for the town. The treated wastewater could be sold to companies for industrial use, so the system could provide an additional benefit to the community.
Water haulers could hook up to the facility today, but the town must build the infrastructure for haulers to access the facility, the mayor said. The town intends to start selling the water in the future. The system offers multiple benefits to the town at a fraction of the cost to build a new lagoon system, he added.
[/emember_protected] 
