NorthernLife.ca reports that Sudbury is pursuing a new biosolids facility, or more specifically “a centralized sludge treatment and biosolids end-product storage facility at the wastewater treatment plant.”
The federal government will provide $11 million – 25 percent of the overall cost – for this wastewater treatment plant through its Public-Private Partnership (P3) Fund. “The city will be responsible for the remaining 75 per cent of the project. Ownership of the facility will remain with the city; however, once selected, private sector partners will design, build, finance, operate and maintain the biosolids management facility.”
“Existing practices have become outdated and are no longer environmentally sustainable, and the new facility will respond to the current restraints placed on the city’s disposal practices. The city has been using tailings ponds near Lively for more than 30 years as a disposal site for waste-activated sludge. Changing environmental standards and recurrent episodes of foul odour have made this method unsustainable, and the city is required to cease this practice for disposal purposes.”
The Sudbury Star adds, “Construction of the 18-month project could start early in the new year.”
Council of Canadians water campaigner Emma Lui recently stated, “Water is a commons – a shared entity to be carefully managed by all – and the allocation of funding for water and wastewater services under a P3 entrenches water governance within a neoliberal, market framework that favours profit over human rights, environmental protection, social justice and public health.”
