Councillors here are likely smiling over the good weather that has been around for the past few weeks.
Council learned on Sept. 27 that it was under orders from the Ministry of Environment to get rid of material in its sewage lagoon – and the fine weather has meant there were no spills in the meantime.
The township had asked the MOE for help when it discovered a shortage of space and a danger of a spill from its lagoons, which hold effluent from Drayton and Moorefield.
Clerk Patty Sinnamon said on Oct. 7 the township had already been emptying some of the lagoons, which had only minimal storage space when council met.
And, she added, the township had permission to irrigate adjacent lands with sewage material at the December rate of 4,000 cubic metres a day instead of a much lower rate usually used for October.
Council had asked the MOE for permission to either spread the sewage on the adjacent lands to the lagoons, or send it to the Conestogo River. The MOE order said to spread it on the lands.
The issue is an ongoing one over the past few months, with council planning for two new sewage cells, and suddenly being hit with much higher costs than expected.
Ontario Clean Water Agency’s Scott Craggs told council on Sept. 27 the lagoons were fast filling up because of heavy rains that hit the area in the previous two weeks.
Public works director Larry Lynch told council it is easier for the lagoons to be pumped out instead of hauling the material to a dumping site. He added, “If there is no rain, we could very well be okay.”
Since that time there has been little rainfall.
The lagoons were suddenly much higher than anticipated and the township is checking to see if infiltration from drains is part of the problem. Lynch told council there were no inflows found during checks for the new areas of settlement in Drayton and Moorefield.
He added township staff have “gone door to door checking sump pumps” that might be dumping water into the lagoons illegally.
But, he said, “What we’re doing is looking for problems, and we haven’t found any yet.”
Sinnamon noted on Oct. 7 that with the good weather and the township hitting the Oct. 1 cleanup time, the danger of a spill is now over.
