The Town of Golden has begun accepting CP’s pre-treated industrial effluent into the town’s wastewater treatment facility after both parties ratified a three-year agreement on Jan. 27.
The agreement was a long time in the making, with CP submitting requests to discharge its industrial wastewater to the town since 2002.
“This marks a significant milestone in a technical process that began over two years ago,” said Jon Wilsgard, the CAO for the town. “It’s a notion having been initiated nearly 20 years ago.”
CP will pay based on a bylaw establishing rising block rate structure for the volume discharged as well as a monthly flat rate based on the size of connection to the town’s system. The monthly flat rate will be $84.86. The rate for volume discharged will be variable, so the town doesn’t have a concrete idea on what that will look like as of yet.
CP recently constructed a $7 million pre-treatment facility in 2015, with brought their effluent up to town standards. When they approached the town once again in 2017 with a new proposal and their new facility, the town decided they were able to proceed with an agreement with CP.
CP is permitted to discharge up to 60 cubic metres a day into the town’s wastewater collection and treatment system and is required to report quarterly on the quality and volume of effluent being discharged.
The municipal wastewater treatment facility recorded an annual average daily flow of approximately 1,200 cubic metres in 2018. The maximum design capacity of the facility is 4,200 cubic metres.
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“The pre-treated effluent is now meeting or exceeding all of the town’s bylaw requirements related to domestic effluent,” said Wilsgard. “Having CP discharge into the municipal collection and treatment system will provide increased assurance of discharge quality to the environment.”
The town has been denying CP’s requests to discharge its effluent since 2002, when it initially approached the town with its proposal. This was because the effluent at the time was not suitable for discharge to the domestic wastewater treatment plant.
This isn’t the first time the town and CP have worked together on discharge treatment, as the town has been accepting domestic effluent from CP for years from various administration and operations buildings.
In addition to the Town of Golden’s own bylaw on discharging effluent into it’s system, the town must also abide by provincial and federal regulations and standards before discharging treated effluent into the Columbia River.
