During a special meeting on Aug. 25, council approved a committee of the whole recommendation to award the tender for the pre-design and system assessment, which carries a price tag of $99,100 – plus HST, to RV Anderson Associates.
The work, which is expected to wrap up in late January or early February, will provide information on what will be required to meet the municipality’s needs.
In a follow-up phone conversation, Warden Nicholas MacInnis explained that the municipality has pinpointed an amount of sewage it would like to treat on a daily basis at any facility. Coupling that with the environmental conditions in the waterway – the South River – the consultant will create a design outlining what would be required to meet those needs.
“We have a lot of options,” he offered, when it comes to STP designs, including a mechanical one, noting that the goal is to tailor the selection to where it would located in Lower South River and the capacity the municipality would require – not only now but into the future.
There is also the sequencing batch reactor (SBR) – the option that the municipality selected for the STP it built in Havre Boucher – which does not require a lagoon. With an SBR, everything is contained inside a building.
As for the potential benefits of the county constructing an STP, MacInnis offered it provides another option for disposal, especially with the possible need to accommodate continuing development in the municipality. He confirmed a new municipality facility would not mean the county would no longer require using the town’s STP, which now accommodates customers from the fringe area that borders their municipal neighbour.
Nevertheless, he pointed out, a new county STP would potentially lessen the capacity required from the town’s facility. MacInnis noted that could also help the Town of Antigonish address any increase in need from its residents.
Describing them as “strict protocols,” especially when it comes to the potential effect of effluent on the water system, he said the environmental requirements that must be met are understandably time consuming.
After the environment assessment and pre-design phase, the next step is the process of completing the full project design, which would be the document – including pricing – that would be presented to provincial and federal levels of government for possible funding.
Ideally, if the timeline unfolds as anticipated, MacInnis said construction of an STP could begin in 2028.
