ESTEVAN — The City of Estevan is hoping to move forward with a pilot project for the wastewater treatment plant, despite not receiving any tenders.
Estevan city council discussed the project at a recent meeting. Shane Bucsis, the manager of the city's water and wastewater divisions, reminded council this was part of the process if the Shand Power Station were to shut down. SaskPower currently accepts the effluent from the plant.
Bucsis said the lack of tenders puts the city in a bind as far as going back to the drawing board, and figuring out how to get the pilot project up and running this year, while still qualifying for a grant through the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM).
Bucsis has met with Magna IV Engineering to reach out to FCM.
Coun. Shelly Veroba said if this project does go forward, it would save the city a lot of money versus other alternatives.
When asked by Coun. Tony Sernick if this meant they would look at local contractors to take care of the project, Bucsis said that would be the plan.
"Whenever you're dealing with government grants and things like that, it's just to make sure that you're going through the right process to award the work," said Bucsis. "It was a lot of smaller different trades coming together where there wasn't a local company that felt comfortable with doing that."
If he has no tenders, he will speak with FCM so he can move forward and work with local people as much as possible.
"If this project doesn't get done in this construction season it will have to be built next construction season, pushing the process back a year," said Bucsis.
The issue was first brought up earlier this year. Currently, SaskPower takes all of the city's wastewater treatment plant effluent as boiler-feed water after going through the wetlands. Through this agreement, the city doesn't release any water into the environment. With the potential shutdown of the Shand Power Station, Bucsis began the process of planning to release into the Souris River, and how to do it in a manner that is environmentally friendly.
Currently, a membrane bioreactor is the only approved process that the city could utilize if it had to release into the Souris. With the costs and operational costs being so much lower than the bioreactor, council approved a budget of $400,000 for a pilot project and applied for FCM grant funding to help cover the costs.
If the pilot project is successful, it would open more options to the city greatly reducing construction and operational costs.
