Collingwood’s redeveloped water treatment plant is the largest dollar-value capital project in the town’s history, and part of the 100-year story of water treatment on the site.
Construction has begun on the site on the east shoreline of Sunset Point where buildings from the 1940s water treatment plant are slated for demolition.
A concrete pipe, 1,050 mm in diameter, was put ¾ of a kilometre into the bay in 1969 and is still the only intake for the town’s drinking water services.
The existing R. A. Barker Water Treatment plant was built in the 1990s, and engineer, Mike Ainley, of Ainley Group was on the project team for it, reviewing design drawings.
“This was one of the very first municipal plants with membrane technology … even worldwide there weren’t that many,” said Ainley. “Membrane technology became the majority of new plants after [the Walkerton inquiry].”
Ainley is also part of the project team with AECOM and the town for the expansion that is in the works to rebuild the plant on the same site and triple the output over two phases.
He said the new plant will continue to use membrane technology for filtration, plus chlorine for disinfection as the current plant does, with the addition of UV disinfection and micro-screening.
“It’s called a multi-barrier approach,” said Ainley. “In case anything gets through the membranes, there’s a redundancy that we can kill that with the chlorine and the UV disinfectant.”
The new design, he said, comes with many more safeguards.
“It’s not that there weren’t a lot of safeguards to begin with, it’s just even more now,” said Ainley.
One of the first tasks to be completed on the site is an installation of UV disinfection systems into the existing plant. This will increase the efficiency of the plant, as well as its output capacity. The system is a portion of the UV disinfection technology planned for the expanded plant and so it will be reused in the expanded plant.
There’s also some test digging going on at the site prior to the start of plant expansion construction slated for Fall 2023.
According to Ken Kaden, the project engineer for the Town of Collingwood’s environmental services department, the UV system should come online by the end of 2022, or possibly the spring of 2023.
The first phase of the expansion will increase the water treatment plant’s output capacity from 32,000 to 59,000 cubic metres per day. The full additional output is expected to be available by the summer of 2026, according to the town’s current project schedule. Construction work on the site will be finished by 2028.
The next phase, which will occur when the capacity is needed, will increase the output to 101, cubic metres per day. The second phase will not require any new buildings, as the equipment necessary to increase the output will fit in the buildings designed for phase one. It's possible, said Kaden, the second phase will also require a new or secondary intake from the bay. For now, the 1969 concrete pipe will remain the intake for the expanded plant.
Kaden said it’s difficult to predict when that second phase expansion will be necessary, but the current environmental assessment for the plant indicates it will be needed around 2044, pending changes in growth trends for the area.
The expansion project, presented at a public information session on Oct. 26, will include a new membrane building and the existing plant building will be converted to house the chlorine treatment tanks, office space, and the pump system used to send the water to Collingwood residents and to the New Tecumseth pipeline.
The new building will also include public washrooms and a mural commissioned to Emily Kewageshi of Giizhig Studio.
The site will be landscaped and the shore reinforced to match the standard for the rest of Sunset Point Park. There will still be parking for 50 vehicles.
Sculpture art has also been commissioned for the park with artist Solomon King of Stone Artisan Studios hired for the work.
“At the end of the day, this is a re-imagining of parkland, partly, although a good chunk of it is building,” said Ainley. “The building … even the landscaping is going to be designed to look a bit like a wave, so we’re keeping the water concept.”
The town has budgeted $121 million for the project and has pre-qualified three contractors who will be allowed to bid on the project. The Town of New Tecumseth will be paying $71 million toward the expansion as per their agreement for drinking water from the town. Collingwood has been supplying 6,000 cubic metres of water per day to New Tecumseth since 2008.
Some residents in the Town of The Blue Mountains also receive water from Collingwood and the two municipalities are in talks over their agreement.
Collingwood’s portion of the costs for the plant expansion will come from reserves saved from water customer payments and fees collected from developers for building in Collingwood.
The town is currently accepting public comment on the design of the water treatment plant expansion until Friday, Nov. 25. Questions and comments can be submitted to Ken Kaden and/or Mike Ainley at [email protected], and [email protected].
For more information, or to leave a comment for the town, visit the town’s engagement page online here.
Click here to view the public information slide deck presented on Oct. 26.
