Harbour Solutions is a Canadian public infrastructure project in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
The CAD $333 million project comprised the construction of three sewage treatment plants and connected various sewage pipe networks with lift stations to treat all sanitary sewage in Halifax and Dartmouth. [1] It was completed in 2010.
For two and a half centuries prior to this project, raw sewage was discharged untreated directly into Halifax Harbour. The harbour waters have been the recipient of approximately 200 million litres of untreated raw sewage every day, enough to fill 25 Olympic-size swimming pools. [1] Shellfish harvesting from the harbour and swimming within the harbour have been prohibited for health reasons.
The historic settlements of Halifax and Dartmouth were built with no thought to sewage treatment as a means of waste disposal. Throughout the 19th century, sewers were designed as a single system, with no separation between sanitary sewers, which carried domestic human waste, and stormwater drainage systems. The combined sewers simply emptied into the harbour from dozens of outfalls at the bottom of each street that met the waterfront. [2]
By the mid-20th century, it was clear that the system was not environmentally sustainable. Millions of litres of sewage were dumped into the harbour daily, consisting not only of simple human waste, but of pharmaceuticals, industrial chemicals, fertilizers, and a host of other harmful material. [2]
Sewage treatment plants were proposed for both Halifax and Dartmouth beginning in the 1970s, however, the separate municipalities were never able to reach a consensus for system design and construction. That decade saw the Halifax Regional Water Commission begin to charge its customers a pollution surcharge which was intended to fund such a system. Meanwhile, a host of different provincial and federal governments came and went and overall funding was never finalized. It was only following municipal amalgamation which saw the cities of Halifax and Dartmouth dissolved and merged with all municipalities in Halifax County to form the Halifax Regional Municipality in 1996 that the sewage treatment issue gained necessary traction and moved beyond the planning stage. [3]
Under the Harbour Solutions Project, a treatment system has been under construction since the early 2000s with three plants being built (one in downtown Halifax, one in downtown Dartmouth, and one in Herring Cove on the southwest side of the harbour) as well as extensive collector piping to close all sewage outfalls into the harbour and redirect sewage into the treatment plants. Total cost of the project is estimated to be approximately CA$333 million. [1] On February 11, 2008, the treatment facility in downtown Halifax officially commenced operation. The Dartmouth plant came online on July 10, 2008 and the Herring Cove plant was expected to open in late fall 2008. [4]
Harbour sewage is also mitigated to a lesser extent by the aforementioned existing plants at Mill Cove, in Bedford and another at Eastern Passage.
The Halifax Regional Municipality announced on July 9, 2008 that the harbour beaches, Black Rock Beach at Point Pleasant Park and the beach at Dingle Park would re-open to swimming on August 2, 2008. Fecal coliform bacteria levels at these locations were either undetectable or at safe levels for swimming. Eleven lifeguards would patrol the beaches. [4] The improved water quality in Halifax Harbour during the summer of 2008 was a direct result of the newly operating Halifax and Dartmouth sewage plants. The clarity of the water improved to the point where the municipal government hired commercial divers to remove debris from the floor of the harbour along the popular boardwalk in the Historic Properties; prior to that summer, the debris was seldom visible due to the opaque water as a result of the untreated sewage.
However repeated breakdowns of the system in 2008 resulted in regular beach closures again and complaints about foul odours and sewage filled basements. A massive failure of the central plant in January 2009 caused raw sewage to again be poured into the Harbour. [5]
The 2009 breakdown was caused by what Tim Bousquet of The Coast called "a perfect storm" of technical errors. [6] A Nova Scotia Power electrical outage spurred a technician to activate two backup generators to maintain operation of the plant, but the electrical load was unevenly distributed between the two generators and one became overloaded and failed. A floodgate, designed to close in emergencies to isolate the plant's "wet well" from the deep pipe feeding sewage to the plant, was powered by the overloaded generator. A switch designed to allow the second generator to power the floodgate happened to fail. Owing to the failed generator, only one of the four sewage pumps could convey sewage out of the wet well, and the volume of sewage began to rise, shorting out the electrical junction boxes placed above the pumps. With the floodgate jammed partially open and all four pumps inoperable, the 85-foot-deep wet well filled with sewage. The electrical control room above the wet well then also filled with sewage, destroying all the equipment there. [6]
The incident brought criticism from the federal government and the public, and city officials promised to get the plant back online by Spring 2010. On June 25, 2010, the Halifax Wastewater Treatment Plant was returned to full operation, and it was announced that Black Rock Beach and Dingle Park Beach would be safe for swimming again. [7]
Untreated sewage continues to be discharged into Halifax harbour due to severed sewer lines during construction of the new treatment plant. [8]
Effluent is an outflowing of water or gas to a natural body of water, from a structure such as a sewage treatment plant, sewer pipe, industrial wastewater treatment plant or industrial outfall. Effluent, in engineering, is the stream exiting a chemical reactor.
Halifax Harbour is a large natural harbour on the Atlantic coast of Nova Scotia, Canada, located in the Halifax Regional Municipality. The town of Halifax largely owes its existence to the harbour, being one of the largest and deepest ice-free natural harbours in the world. Before Confederation it was one of the most important commercial ports on the Atlantic seaboard. In 1917, it was the site of the world's largest man-made accidental explosion, when the SS Mont-Blanc blew up in the Halifax Explosion of December 6.
A combined sewer is a type of gravity sewer with a system of pipes, tunnels, pump stations etc. to transport sewage and urban runoff together to a sewage treatment plant or disposal site. This means that during rain events, the sewage gets diluted, resulting in higher flowrates at the treatment site. Uncontaminated stormwater simply dilutes sewage, but runoff may dissolve or suspend virtually anything it contacts on roofs, streets, and storage yards. As rainfall travels over roofs and the ground, it may pick up various contaminants including soil particles and other sediment, heavy metals, organic compounds, animal waste, and oil and grease. Combined sewers may also receive dry weather drainage from landscape irrigation, construction dewatering, and washing buildings and sidewalks.
Sanitary sewer overflow (SSO) is a condition in which untreated sewage is discharged from a sanitary sewer into the environment prior to reaching sewage treatment facilities. When caused by rainfall it is also known as wet weather overflow. Causes of sanitary sewer overflows include: Blockage of sewer lines, infiltration/Inflow of excessive stormwater into sewer lines during heavy rainfall, malfunction of pumping station lifts or electrical power failure, broken sewer lines. Prevention of such overflow events involves regular maintenance and timely upgrades of infrastructure.
The Deer Island Waste Water Treatment Plant is located on Deer Island, one of the Boston Harbor Islands in Boston Harbor. The plant is operated by the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority (MWRA) and began partial operations in 1995. The facility was fully operational in 2000 with the completion of the outfall tunnel.
The Western Treatment Plant is a 110 km2 (42 sq mi) sewage treatment plant in Cocoroc, Victoria, Australia, 30 km (19 mi) west of Melbourne's central business district, on the coast of Port Phillip Bay. It was completed in 1897 by the Melbourne and Metropolitan Board of Works (MMBW), and is currently operated by Melbourne Water. The plant's land is bordered by the Werribee River to the east, the Princes Freeway to the north, and Avalon Airport to the west. It forms part of the Port Phillip Bay and Bellarine Peninsula Ramsar Site as a wetland of international importance. The Western Treatment Plant treats around 50% of Melbourne's sewage – about 485 ML per day - and generates almost 40,000 ML of recycled water a year.
Breamlea, Victoria, Australia, is a secluded seaside hamlet located on the south coast of the Bellarine Peninsula, 18 kilometres south of Geelong and halfway between Barwon Heads and Torquay. It is divided between the City of Greater Geelong and the Surf Coast Shire. In the 2016 census, Breamlea had a permanent population of 162.
The Ashbridges Bay Wastewater Treatment Plant is the city of Toronto's main sewage treatment facility, and the second largest such plant in Canada after Montreal's Jean-R. Marcotte facility. One of four plants that service the city of Toronto, it treats the wastewater produced by some 1.4 million of the city's residents and has a rated capacity of 818,000 cubic metres per day. Until 1999 it was officially known as the Main Treatment Plant. The plant has a 185 m (607 ft) high smokestack which is visible from most parts of the city.
A marine outfall is a pipeline or tunnel that discharges municipal or industrial wastewater, stormwater, combined sewer overflows (CSOs), cooling water, or brine effluents from water desalination plants to the sea. Usually they discharge under the sea's surface. In the case of municipal wastewater, effluent is often being discharged after having undergone no or only primary treatment, with the intention of using the assimilative capacity of the sea for further treatment. Submarine outfalls are common throughout the world and probably number in the thousands. The light intensity and salinity in natural sea water disinfects the wastewater to ocean outfall system significantly. More than 200 outfalls alone have been listed in a single international database maintained by the Institute for Hydromechanics at Karlsruhe University for the International Association of Hydraulic Engineering and Research (IAHR) / International Water Association (IWA) Committee on Marine Outfall Systems.
Sewage is a type of wastewater that is produced by a community of people. It is typically transported through a sewer system. Sewage consists of wastewater discharged from residences and from commercial, institutional and public facilities that exist in the locality. Sub-types of sewage are greywater and blackwater. Sewage also contains soaps and detergents. Food waste may be present from dishwashing, and food quantities may be increased where garbage disposal units are used. In regions where toilet paper is used rather than bidets, that paper is also added to the sewage. Sewage contains macro-pollutants and micro-pollutants, and may also incorporate some municipal solid waste and pollutants from industrial wastewater.
Effluent sewer systems, also called septic tank effluent gravity (STEG) or solids-free sewer (SFS) systems, have septic tanks that collect sewage from residences and businesses, and the liquid fraction of sewage that comes out of the tank is conveyed to a downstream receiving body such as either a centralized sewage treatment plant or a distributed treatment system for further treatment or disposal away from the community generating the sewage. Most of the solids are removed by the interceptor tanks, so the treatment plant can be much smaller than a typical plant and any pumping for the supernatant can be simplier without grinders.
Saint John Harbour is a large natural harbour on the Atlantic coast of New Brunswick, Canada, and within the seaport city of Saint John, New Brunswick.
The Middle Harbour Syphon is a heritage-listed sewerage syphon located at Monash Crescent, Clontarf, Northern Beaches Council, New South Wales, Australia. It was designed by E. M. de Burgh, an engineer in the NSW Public Works Department and was built from 1922 to 1925 by the Department. The sewerage syphon is also known as the Middle Harbour Syphon NSOOS and The Spit Syphon. The property is owned by Sydney Water, an agency of the Government of New South Wales. The property was added to the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 15 November 2002.
The Bondi Ocean Outfall Sewer is a heritage-listed sewerage infrastructure at Blair Street, North Bondi, Waverley Municipality, New South Wales, Australia. The sewer line commences at the intersection of Oxford Street and College Street in Darlinghurst and then travels in a more-or-less easterly direction for 6.1 kilometres (3.8 mi) passing through a number of suburbs until it reaches Blair Street in North Bondi. It was designed and built by the Public Works Department between 1880 and 1889. It is also known as BOOS and Main Northern Ocean Outfall Sewer. The property is owned by Sydney Water, an agency of the Government of New South Wales. It was added to the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 15 November 2002.
The Double Bay Compressed Air Ejector Station is a heritage-listed former sewage pumping station (SPS87) and now decommissioned sewerage infrastructure in Jamberoo Lane, Double Bay, adjacent to the rear boundary of 63 William Street, in the Municipality of Woollahra local government area of New South Wales, Australia. The site of the pumping station and the State Heritage Register curtilage is shown on SHR:01324–Plan 2019, reproduced on the internet page referenced here.
Sewage Pumping Station 27 is a heritage-listed former sewage pumping station situated in Callan Park, Rozelle, Inner West Council, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. It is also known as SPS 27. The building is located on the southern side of King George Park. The property is owned by Sydney Water. It was added to the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 18 November 1999.
The Ultimo Sewage Pumping Station is a heritage-listed sewerage pumping station located at William Henry Street in the inner city Sydney suburb of Ultimo in the City of Sydney local government area of New South Wales, Australia. As a result of the construction of an elevated roadway along William Henry Street, the pumping station now fronts Pyrmont Street, with vehicles being required to enter via Quarry Street, then turning right into Pyrmont Street.
Sewage Pumping Station 3 is a heritage-listed sewerage pumping station located near 1 Booth Street, Annandale, City of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. The building is located adjacent to Johnstons Creek. It was built from 1902 to 1904 by the New South Wales Public Works Department. It is also known as SPS 3, SP0003, Booth Street Sewage Pumping Station and Annandale Sewage Pumping Station. The property is owned by Sydney Water. It was added to the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 18 November 1999.
The Crossness Sewage Treatment Works at Crossness (TQ487805) in the London Borough of Greenwich is located at the eastern end of the Southern Outfall Sewer. It was opened in 1865 and is one of the largest sewage works in the United Kingdom. It treats the waste water from the Southern Outfall Sewer serving South and South East London, and is associated with the adjacent Crossness Pumping Station. It is operated by Thames Water.
Water supply and sanitation in the Wellington region involves the provision of the "three waters" – drinking water, stormwater, and wastewater services in the Greater Wellington region.
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Coordinates: 44°39′13.3″N63°34′49.14″W / 44.653694°N 63.5803167°W
