With Greater Nanaimo Pollution Control Centre upgrading wastewater treatment, Regional District of Nanaimo has awarded a $300,560 contract to ChemTrade for a chemical used in current treatment.
Secondary wastewater treatment facilities, which will allow micro-organisms to treat wastewater, are currently being constructed, but the current primary treatment sees a polymer and aluminum sulphate added to wastewater in order to separate solids. The RDN board approved the one-year deal to ChemTrade for the supply and delivery of aluminum sulphate at its May 22 regular meeting.
“It acts as … a coagulent, so essentially when you introduce it into any type of water, whether it’s wastewater or any type of water that has suspended solids or organics within it, by adding that into it, it actually has those solids combine together and what happens is they become less buoyant and sink and so it helps as part of the treatment process,” said Sean De Pol, RDN director of water and waster water services.
Once the secondary wastewater treatment upgrades are complete, the regional district anticipates that aluminum sulphate will no longer be needed, according to a regional district staff report.
ChemTrade was the lone submission during a regional district request for tender and has previously held similar deals with the regional district, said De Pol. The deal begins June 1 and runs until May 31, 2019 with an option to extend if necessary.
“We’ve left ourselves the ability to extend for an additional year under that contract,” said De Pol. “With any construction project, you need to give yourself a contingency plan or a backup plan … there’s a provision in there and there is a note in the report should we need to extend it an additional year, the director of finance can authorize that extension.”
Under terms of the deal, aluminum sulphate will be provided to the regional district at a fixed rate of approximately 29 cents per kilogram, the staff report said.
reporter@nanaimobulletin.com
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