Around the world, there are many examples where sewage systems are designed to treat
wastewater so that it can be reused in beneficial ways.
Although it is rare to use treated water to drink as potable, it is common around
the world to use treated non-potable water for irrigation, toilet flushing, and laundry.
As far ranging as France and Florida, the concept of ‘fit for use’ application of
water resources is key.
Why should we use valuable treated drinking water to irrigate our lawn or to flush down the toilet?
One of the key issues here on the B.C. West Coast,
and in many parts of North America,
is the advantage of using a snow pack as a water storage mechanism.
So on the West Coast a large portion of our water supply
is held in the snow, so it can melt over the summer
and replenish the reservoir that we're draining all during the summer, during dry weather periods.
So as climate change results in changes in behaviour, temperature in particular in this case,
shallower, or less deep snow pack,
we run into the danger of losing our water storage part way through the summer.
As has happened on a number of occasions.
Particularly in the case of Sechelt, for instance, in 2012
and in 2015 where the lack of water resulted in the lake drawing down to a point
where Chapman creek, where they have their water intake, no longer had water for the community.
The Sechelt Water Treatment and Resource Centre is right within the urban part of Sechelt.
Rather than being isolated and away, its greenhouse and treatment plant is nestled above a wetland
park and across the street from single family residential homes.
The wastewater treatment plant that was recently built in the municipality or district of Sechelt
is an interesting example of a community adaptation to climate change.
That treatment plant is able to achieve the
highest level of water quality for reclaimed water quality in the province of British Columbia
and for that matter, in the world.
It's the highest standard you can achieve with a biological treatment process.
The treatment plant has tanks, storage, and trucking area on a lower level.
The upper and public areas showcase the treatment technology, as well as a wide variety of low
impact stormwater source controls.
A key element is a greenhouse, which houses plants that are a part of the water treatment technology.
Let’s take a tour inside.
Hi my name is Morgan Banks, I'm a class 2 operator
at the Sechelt new Wastewater Resource Centre
and I've been operating this new floating batch reactor system for a year now.
and with many possibilities of reuse of the water that we filter
and also the reuse of bio solids.
We're here in the greenhouse and this is the floating batch reactor
At this point here, this tank is now in the reaction phase with raw sewage.
The bugs are kind of breaking down the sewage to simpler forms.
The settling phase allows the bacteria to settle while leaving the clear liquid on top.
and there is a time frame for settling, and once it has settled enough that we have good clear liquid
it will be decanted to a secondary tank.
Inside the greenhouse, the key function of the plants is to grow roots that extend into the sewage effluent.
Being in the greenhouse, the design of this greenhouse as far as the plants that we were going to plant.
I personally thought it was going to be tropical, looking at the pictures from the design,
but we decided to go with native plants.
I'm not sure what the reasoning behind that was.
But we did go native
and as the process was developing and the plants were very young and they got established
we had room to experiment. So we would go with a little of tropical.
The surprising part about this process is that we've been getting lots of tomato plants.
This is all natural because they've been coming into the sewage and they've been adhering to the baskets.
and they are thriving quite well, and as you can see this is almost December and we're still getting tomatoes.
This FBR system we found after the plants got established.
It was probably about six months of being in the greenhouse.
We were waiting and anticipating the growth of the roots into the FBR
and the first ones to show up were the Sedge grass.
and we've cut this three times already, trimmed them down.
They have the biggest root base, surprisingly, of all these plants in the greenhouse.
After the decant has happened and it's gone into a secondary tank,
the decanted liquid will now enter a filtrate system.
and this is their Ultra Fine filter system, membranes,
they're really, really fine filters that actually remove Giardia, Typhoid, Diphtheria,
very, very small bacteria and suspended material.
They use these filter systems in our drinking water, which is surprising because we do use them in waste water.
Because we want to be able to possibly even use the water later on for other purposes.
I will just show you a sample here.
This is the decant off the FBR. Looks kinda cloudy.
Then if you look here, you can see how clear the water is when it is actually filtered.
It almost looks like drinking water,
but now it needs to be one final step, and that is it needs to be disinfected.
So we'll do UV disinfection, ultraviolet disinfection.
So the bottom line for the whole process is, once the water has been filtered, it's ready for reuse.
It's been disinfected so it can be handled.
There has been talks with corporations and companies out there to use our reuse water.
Our final permeate could be used for the gravel pit that is nearby, to wash their gravel.
There's been suggestions from the golf course if they can possibly reuse the water for watering the grass,
because they use quite a bit of water for keeping the golf courses green.
The Sechelt facility is only one of several highly advanced water treatment and reuse installations in BC.
For example, at UBC, the Centre for Interactive Research in Sustainability
created a building that integrates full wastewater
treatment in a showcase installation.
The treated water is reused throughout the building, for outdoor use, toilets, and for
select potable uses.
Dockside Green in Victoria has its own wastewater treatment plant, and recirculates through
a surface stream as part of the treatment process.
Water is also reused for a landscape irrigation and toilet flushing.
Currently the B.C. government is making some interesting changes, or has made changes to the plumbing code.
To enable dual plumbing in buildings, so that buildings can have both a non potable and potable waterline.
As we move forward, it'll be important for the community, for stakeholders in the community,
to discuss, to understand what is involved.
weather patterns can change, and we can make better utilization of what is likely to be extremely limited water supplies,
in the not too distant future.