Water Service - Wastewater Treatment

Re-Habilitation of the Port McNicoll MBR Wastewater Treatment Plant

Client:

Township of Tay
Location:

Victoria Harbour, ON
Major Outcome:

Hydraulic bottlenecks in membranes that restricted plant capacity were resolved.

The Port McNicoll WWTP was commissioned as the first full-scale membrane bioreactor in Ontario in 2001. Immediately after commissioning, it became apparent that the plant capacity was limited under peak flow conditions and that the plant as designed could not service the design population. Bypasses of peak wet weather flows in cold weather were necessary to prevent overflows from the bioreactors.  

 

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XCG Consultants Ltd. (XCG) was retained by the Township of Tay to conduct a capacity review of the facility and to determine the cause of the hydraulic limitations. This review identified higher than expected peak flows under wet weather conditions along with low wastewater temperatures as the factors limiting the hydraulic capacity. XCG subsequently provided expert opinion during mediation with the design consultant.


After mediation, XCG worked with R.J. Burnside & Associates Limited and GE-Zenon to develop a plan to remediate the hydraulic bottleneck that involved adding more membrane cassettes of higher design hydraulic capacity to the existing bioreactors. The first stages of the remediation were completed in 2010 and have eliminated the need to bypass raw sewage at the plant during spring runoff conditions when peak flows and low wastewater temperatures are experienced.