Concerns about the recent increase in foul odors coming from the sewage lagoons in Revelstoke have city staff working on solutions for the smelly issue.
The smell has dissipated over the past few days, but it is still an issue the city is trying to solve according to City of Revelstoke director of engineering Mike Thomas.
“This is not something that’s being ignored. We hear the complaints and we’re working on trying to find a solution,” Thomas said during a presentation to city council on Tuesday afternoon.
Thomas said one of the major issues in dealing with the undesirable smell is that any changes made to the lagoons have a six-day turn around before they are noticeable.
“Any changes we make to get an immediate effect, it’s not going to happen,” said Thomas.
Mayor Mark McKee said he sees the issue is a serious one that needs both short and long term planning.
“I guess the message I want to give out to the public is that we take this very seriously,” he said.
Thomas said the pond does turn over in the spring and fall which results in an increase in odor for about a week.
“I feel like what we’re encountering now is more than that. I don’t feel like it’s a week long or couple day event. This is something we are going to see seasonally until we figure it out,” he said.
Despite the offensive odor, Thomas said they have measured the odor in the past and it is below health concern levels.
Thomas said a request for proposals has been issued in order to hire a consulting engineer who could explore options for upgrading the current sewage treatment plant. The deadline for the proposals is July 7, and the city is hoping to have a completed study within six months.
“I don’t think they will come back with an answer that is a simple solution,” said Thomas.
The sewage plant has experienced odor issues over the past several years, often resulting in residents in the Southside area being forced to close their windows in the evenings to avoid the smell permeating their homes.
“This year, we’ve had some recurrence of the lagoons causing an odor and a nuisance in the Southside area,” said Thomas.
Councillors Trevor English and Aaron Orlando asked about the efficiency of a filter system installed in the headworks building last year. The filter is supposed to scrub smells that come from the building by treating the various gases that come out of the sewer pipes, including the rotten egg smell created by hydrogen sulfide.
Orlando wanted to know if there was quantifiable data to show the headworks scrubber was making a difference.
“Overall, can we quantify if things have improved?”he said.
Thomas said he felt there had been a significant improvement in odor since the scrubber was installed. He said that standing in the headworks building for more than 30 seconds used to be unbearable, but now that the charcoal filter system had been installed, it has dramatically improved, and that the smell from the building is no longer an issue. He said as Revelstoke has started to become more of a four-seasons resort town, the community will start seeing an increase in demand on the sewer plant.
In the coming weeks, city staff are exploring tweaking the mixing system designed to pump more oxygen into the pond. The smell is caused when the natural bacteria that break down the waste run out of dissolved oxygen in the water. They then revert from aerobic to anaerobic digestion, which leads to off gassing of the smelly gas.
The smell may have dissipated for now, but Thomas says he isn’t confident it will be a long-term solution.
“I’d love to be able to say we’ve solved it, but I don’t have such a high level of confidence that what we are doing will be able to solve it long term,” he said.
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