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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Lucknow Sentinel, 1984-11-30, Page 73 Lucknow Sentinel, Wednesday; November 28, 1984 ---Page 7 4. a r. admits residents will have real to c�inplain.... . •from page :3 Walden: I happened to visit the Goderich plant just recently and the employees say they do have odour and they do have complaints. When we were there we could smell it, too. Steve Burns. I'm not saying,that. when you are on the site, that you cannot smell it. Traditionally, it is considered that the odour is not offensive and you have to be on the site ,to smell it. The guidelines, which the ministry of the environment has established, have been developed through. experience with literally hundreds•of these facilities. Walden: Has Chester Finnigan been. fully informed with respect to the complete ramifications of this project? I understand Chester understands there will be no 'access road across his property and' that he will be able to crop .over the top of the sewage tile bed. Fie told • me that yesterday. He says that the blueprint Burns Ross showed me. is not the' same. blueprint..he was shown, • .• . Brophy: Unfortunately,, without •Chester 'here to explain exactly -what ;he ,under- stands the matter to be, we cannot goany further than we have with Jim speaking on his behalf: Walden: hi seleetion is it fair -to only consider purchase price 'rather than resident proximity? Burns Ross: Economics is only one factor. Certainly you have to: meet the re- quirements for isolation and we thought we had done that.. We :have met the require- ments of : the ministry for isolation. Walden: What is your opinion on devalu- ation of homes which are mostly new in the area? Steve Ross: I . am not a realty appraiser. This is just my personal opinion which is' probably prejudiced. It would' 'be my opinion that there will be rio devaluation. Going on the, experience in other commun- ities, they are building very expensive homes very close ' to sewage treatment plants. The only way that you would be able to 'prove devaluation one way or the . other would be to have an appraiser assess (your property).. Walden: Of. the plants that I have visited,this is very much closer ° to our • residences than- any I have seen so far. It is definietly closer to our homes than what the plant is in Goderich and there, are • complaints from the owners of the homes. I was told that by people working on the site. - Steve Burns: Certainly there are com- plaints. I certainly would never say that people here would never complain. There will undoubtedly be events that occur from time to ,time that there is an odour associated with it, Herb Clark, Lucknow village councillor: Eldon -Mann and myself niade a trip over to Goderich with the purpose to have a look at their plant: The engineer has told us the plant in Goderich is 40 times the size of the one that ' we are talking about, here. The man who works at the plant took Eldon and I on a tour, and showed us the whole opera- tion. -I wouldn't have known I was in a`sew- age treatment plant if I had gone in there blindfolded. We asked him about- comp- laints and he said he had one complaint from a lady who lived behind there. We went to ask some of the residents who lived around the plait because as you know some of the finest houses in Goderich are built right around this area and their. yards come right up to it. And Eldon and 1 checked with . different residents there ' in the area and there . is no problem. Walden: Is Lucknow council planning to extend Place Street further south to service the area? Murray: I'm not aware.of•it. I talked with • Mr. Finnigan :.yesterday and he . never mentioned this problem with the access road. It was never brought up The built up area of this facility is to be built just south of the fence which runs along the south end of the• Snobelen property. The day that we were on the site, Mr. Finnigan asked how he was to get down to the river to cut the grass along the river and it was agreed at that time that there would be like a farm laneway. The Snob- elen land would be the property of the town and it would continue to be leased out to be cropped. There' would not be anybody working over the tile bed. , This was one concern of Mr. Milne's. He understood that he was going to grow crop on this tile land. It was in the agreement, that he couldn't in black and white and I. don't know why he didn't understand it. He could not graze over the file bed. Getting back to. Mr. Zinn's comments. I realize we have a problem. ,But without providing sewage facilities for our down- town area and cultivating new business how will . we service• the recreational facilities :and the religious facilities in the town. We have a lot of things we have to. . service and we don't collect taxes on the $75,000 homes in West • Wawanosh' town- ship. We have a problem: I even suggested annexation but it was too expensive: We certainly .want :development. I see nothing wrong with the real nice homes to the south of Lucknow and, to the east. I don'ti know how we are going to, service them. Walden:'I am not disputing that we need sewers in the downtown area. I question why come out -there to a prime; residential area. ' • 1 Murray: • I don't ,think you can truthfully stand there and say that is a ,prime resid- ential- area :where that treatment facility is going to be built. it was never my intention to. wish any- thing on. Wawanosh . township. We asked Treatment tanks will be open to prevent problems. 'from page 1 Up to this point in the five years Lucknow Village Council has been studying ,the proposal to build a subsurface treat- ment system, members of council have assured' the public that everything would be enclosed and the only: component of the treatment process which would be above ground would be a small building to' house a blower to pump' the air supply to the equalization and storage tanks. ., Burns said a 10 foot high chain link security fence topped with barbed wire will surroundthe facility. Inside the facility, hand rails surround the open . tanks to prevent employees working in the area from inadvertently falling into the tanks. Burns' said the facility is no different Sewage treatment facility includes. several components •SPS The proposed Lucknow sewage treat- ment facility to be located ih West Waw anosh Township, just south of the village of Lucknow includes ' seven possible components. The influent works; a series of open concrete channels, five or six feet wide by 20 feet long, are designed to remove grit and sand from the sewage as it flows into the system. Metreing of the flow can also be done at this point in the system. The flow equalization tank, measuring , 12 feet by 12 feet by 10 feet deep, is the first majora component of the system. Its purpose is to even out the flows between 'the peak and slow periods of the day.,This , tank is open. The primary settling tank, measuring 10 feet by 10 feet by lil feet, evens outs the flow and settles out the solids' permitting a smaller treatment unit. This is also an open tank. Any of the three preceeding Units are optional. The actual.treatment unit is a rotating biological contactor which is comprised of a cylindrical tank',., partially subni,ersed in a concrete basin. There will be at least two of these contactors with a total area of 16,feet by 22 feet. This tinit willbe closed in. The main treatment takes place biologically in this unit arid solids are created. The . final' settling tank is open and measures 10 feet by 10 feet by 10 feet and works with the treatment unit to catch the solids. The dosing chamber is an open concrete tank, measuring 12 Meet by 12 feet by 10 feet, which collects the sewage after it is treated, allowing large aniounts to be sent to the tile bed system at one tiine, instead of permitting it 'to trickle into the tile bed from the treatment facility. In addition to the main treatment process, ° sludge is sent to the aerated holding tank where it is treated ° and stored until it 'is hauled away by truck from the site. This open tank measures 15 feet by 15 feet by 10 feet. If phosphorous is detected in' testing the leachate from the tile bed system, a chemical storage tank, measuring 10 feet by 10 feet •by 12 feet, is builtinto the •sytemfor the addition of alum to the treatment unit and the final settling tank, to remove phosphorous front the sewage before it !enters the tile bed system. than_ a hydro - transformer station. If' someone chooses to ignore the warning and climb the fence, they are at their' own peril , once- inside the fence: . Burns also informed.the ..November 22 meeting that sludge fom the treatment facility. will be hauled /away from the site between 10 and 30 times a year depending on the size 'of ' the truck used. Lucknow Village Council, in their discussions at ' council meetings, indicated they believed sludge would be hauled away three or four times a year. Burns addressed reasons for concern by area residents. Sources of 'odour could originate from organic 'overload where the strength of the sewage is greater than the capacity of the treatment unit. Burns told the meeting this virtually' never happens in. purely domestic sewage and as there are no industries on the sewage service, he cannot foresee this problem with the Lucknow ..facility. Mechanical failure could result in odour problems, said Burns, but the systends a gravity. flow situation and no sewage will .reach the land surface or flow to the river during a power' failure. Maintenance is important to the mech- anical function of the system and Burns emphasized that the design of the facility using open tanks, makes it easy to main- tain and . mechanical failure should not present a problem. The only noise associated with` the facility would be the blower in a small building which pumps the air Supply to the equalization andtorage tanks. The, only other noise: would be the truck hauling away the sludge, which would be done over two day periods between 10 and 30 times a year. • Burns said the facility is considered acceptable within 100 metres of residential buildings and he is confident, but would not guarantee, there will never be odour. He said he does not anticipate a problem as the facilityproposed for Lucknow is very small. . fora meeting, we didn't get it. We weren't invited to a meeting until such time as the petitions were sent around. If Wawanosh had acted, there could have been some of • .. this straightened out before it ever got this far. �. We had the ministry of environment on. one side saying you have to get to work, and we did what we did to solve some of the problems. Consequently it has made some new ones and maybe 'it was a lack of communication. Bruce Baynard, West Wawanosh count calor: What does West Wawanosh gain? If this is such a good deal, why wouldn't the town hang on to it? Brophy: If there is such a thing as an advantage, the town becomes a landowner in the' township and the tbw, nship collects taxes from the town. Raynard' If we could . make a deal with 1 Milne, would the village be interested in taking the property off our hands? Murray: I will go on the record as saying we would definitely have to take 'a look at it, but if you can deal with him, because, I , spent a whole week trying to get him to deal and I sure didn't want to walk away from the $10,000 we put down a hole up there. ; Raynsrd: Why did it take Lucknow council so long to propose a meeting 'with the West Wawanosh council to discuss this matter? You took the option, in the spring • and yet you did not consider asking us for a meeting until October. Murray: We looked at the property in March or April. In the meantime, they did the testing on the Finnigan eight'acres and we talked to Snobelen "about his eight acres. This got, into the summer and it was after the crop was off before test holes. were dug. We were informed by Burns, Ross that it ' was okay to proceed. From there on I don't know. Res idents cornp lain about sewage. pro biems Two Lucknow residents, who attended an information meeting dialing with ques- tions about a proposed, sewage treatment facility for the village of Lucknow, 'raised concerns about : the effluent in the east tributary of the ' Lucknow River. Bob .Lyonsasked the Ministry of Envir- onment officials • at the meeting whether they had ever tested the east tributary of the. Lucknow River, which he called Black • Creek, for sewage pollution.: The• tributary runs alongside Treleaven's Feed. Mill from the Mill Pond. Lyons said Black Creek is half the size of the Lucknow . River and he bets there is more effluent being pumped 'into it than the Lucknow River. Bill Hutchison, an environmental engin- eering officer with the ministry' answered • Lyons questioln, saying as far as he is. aware the proposedcollector system of the Lucknow sewage works takes care of any known problems. The proposed sewage works services the downtown core only: Lucknow resident Dorothy ,Atkinson said her lot is presently being used' as a dumping basin from Havelock Street to the Black Creek. She'lives on Campbell Street just west of Treleaven's Mill. Atkinson said she made a complaint to the Bruce County Public, Health Unit and samples she submitted were supposed, to be tested in a laboratory. She said she has never received a lab report or a response from the health unit concerning her complaint. ' West Wawanosh Township and Lucknow residents,"'who livein the area of the prred sewage treatment facility and tile b d system, are concerned it Will become necessary to expand the system in the , future as more of the village is serviced by sewers. The residents fear they will be living near a much larger facility than the facility currently , proposed, which the ministry describes as very small. oi