Wastewater treatment plant working on problem of sewer smell in north Regina

A sewer stink from the new wastewater treatment plant is still wafting in and out of certain north Regina neighbourhoods on some days depending on humidity and wind conditions.

The City of Regina and EPCOR, the builder and operator of the new wastewater treatment plant, are saying sorry for the smell as they continue to try to fix the problem.

Vicky Campbell is senior operations manager for the plant and she explained the cause of the smell is the movement of residuals from the water treatment process into a lagoon.

When people first started complaining about the stink in some neighbourhoods in the north end two weeks ago, EPCOR began working to address the problem by placing a cap on the residuals in the lagoon and applying chemicals. Campbell said they did notice some improvement, but more needs to be done.

“We need to go a little bit harder on this lagoon,” Campbell noted. “It’s a huge area, it’s like 60 acres, and so what we’re doing now is we’re getting in some specialty equipment to provide some deeper mixing of the odour-control chemical into the lagoon.”

Campbell explained that after upgrading two out of three parts of the old facility during the construction, the third piece of equipment caused some concerns, making it necessary to move some of the sludge into the lagoon where it wouldn’t normally go.

“It was a tricky problem, it was still a very good approach operationally, it just resulted in it happening at this severe time of heat and humidity and that made the problem even worse,” Campbell commented.

Campbell can’t give a timeline as to when this work will be complete, but she is hoping they can tackle the smell as quickly as possible.

You can find more information and updates on the website epcor.com.