ERIN – The council chamber here was filled last week with residents wanting to hear an update on the town’s $200-million wastewater treatment plant.
The project’s purpose is to service Erin’s growing population, flow all wastewater to a single plant and eliminate the reliance on aging septic tanks.
The quarterly wastewater open house on Nov. 26 featured town engineer and director of infrastructure services Brian Kavanagh and WSP Consulting senior project manager Claudio Micelli.
WSP Consulting is an engineering firm overseeing the project and managing various contractors involved.
The project is broken down into eight sections.
The eight steps
The image above shows the eight steps in the wastewater treatment project, beginning at the Hillsburgh gravity sewer and ending at the outfall. Town of Erin image
Micelli began with an overview of the construction works, stating, “We’ve got the Hillsburgh gravity sewer; that work has been completed.”
The work included installation of a gravity sewer and watermain along Trafalgar Road between Upper Canada Drive/Church Street and the entrance to the Elora-Cataract Trail.
Micelli noted there may be deficiency work on the sewer occurring over the “next little while” but generally the works are done, and Trafalgar Road is open for traffic.
“All the properties along Trafalgar Road from the trails up to Church Street have sewer services to the property line,” he added.
The next portion of the project is the Elora-Cataract gravity sewer, which is ongoing.
The Elora-Cataract includes a new gravity sewer and a new watermain along the trail that will connect the sewer system in Hillsburgh to the system in Erin.
“That work is going to be tendered this coming fall with awards probably in the wintertime,” Micelli noted.
Construction for the trail is set to begin in the late winter/early spring of next year with a completion date of 2026.
The next stop on the project map is the Erin village gravity sewer, which connects the pipe work starting in Hillsburgh to a sewage pumping station in Erin.
Although this portion is still ongoing, micro-tunneling – a trench-less method of sewer construction – has been finished.
The sewer will discharge into the Erin village sewer pumping station and is to be completed in the fall of 2025.
The pumping station is located at the Lion’s Club Park in Erin.
“The whole park is being used as the construction site so there’s no access to any part of the park during construction,” Micelli said.
A new pavilion is set to be built on the other side of the park, away from the pumping station as well as park monuments.
Although the playground location will not be changed, he believes “the town is looking to install some new playground equipment.”
Micelli noted the back-up generator for the Erin village pumping station will be located on Williams Street just north of the access road to the Erin water tower site.
An Erin resident asked if any noise would come from the station or generator.
Micelli explained the generator is in an enclosure with a “hospital grade silencer” on it. The company plans to place a fence and shrubbery around it to mitigate the noise.
As for the pumping station, he explained residents won’t hear the pumps running as they are submerged in a wet well about 20 meters deep.
The pumping station is set to be completed in the fall of 2025.
The fifth section is the Erin village twin forcemain, which extends from the pumping station to the Erin wastewater treatment plant.
The facility is scheduled to be completed in the spring of 2025 and consists of:
- a pumping station;
- administration building;
- head works building;
- primary clarifiers and secondary clarifiers;
- bio reactors;
- chemical building;
- back-up generator; and
- electrical building.
The plant is located on Wellington Road 52, west of 10th line.
The facility will treat the incoming raw wastewater from the Hillsburgh and Erin communities, producing treated effluent that meets all ministry requirements to be discharged into the environment.
“Once it [wastewater] goes through the treatment; we have our treated effluents,” Micelli explained.
Effluents are the partially or completely treated wastewater that flows from a reservoir, basin or a treatment plant in this case.
“We constructed a gravity sewer; it’s both forcemain and gravity sewer; up to the outfall that’s been completed,” Micelli added.
The treated effluent will be discharged into the West Credit River via the plant’s effluent sewer and outfall that runs along Wellington Road 52 and Winston Churchill Boulevard.
Citizen concerns
After the open house Erin resident Deb Bradburn told the Advertiser about her concerns regarding the project.
“A big factor is the safety factor on the road with the trucks; we already have significant issues with massive trucking coming out of the [Erin] quarry,” she said.
“My question to the wastewater people is if there is going to be more trucks.”
Bradburn said the road the trucks travel on is marked with a speed of 50km/h but few people abide by the limit.
“Another concern is the aesthetics of the treatment plant for the surrounding area,” she noted.
When Bradburn looks out her backyard she is met with the sight of two big tanks at the treatment facility.
“They’ve told us that there’s going to be a berm in the big hills that will block our view, but we really don’t know what that berm looks like,” she stated.
Micelli also mentioned planting trees on top of the berms to add extra coverage.
“The big question is what’s the compromise for the residents, esthetically, from a safety perspective and obviously down the road for the local residents is going to be the cost factor,” Bradburn said.
The plant was initially set to serve 4,700 homes but WSP officials stated an exact number cannot be released. Micelli stated 13 developer plots were considered in the overall project.
Connection bylaw
Town staff are working to establish a sewer connection bylaw that will include a framework to govern the process of connecting homes and businesses to the wastewater system.
“We want connections to be efficient, compliant and equitable,” stated Kavanagh in a press release handed out on Nov. 26.
Staff submitted a capital request in the 2025 budget to help fund the development of the sanitary sewer connection bylaw.
“Staff will establish a conceptual design, map the area feasible for hook-up, gather information on the condition of septic tanks and explore the feasibility of an “optional” hook-up,” added the release.
Sewer rate
An interim sewer rate is also in the works for new residents, with the aim of aligning it with neighbouring municipalities.
Erin staff and council plan to host quarterly open houses to keep residents up to date on the project.
A report on interim sewer rates is set to come to council in December.
