2005 Upgrade - Stage IIIB Expansion -
Now Completed

            Winner of    Award of Merit, Consulting Engineers of BC -
                                  Awards 2006

                       And    2006 APEGBC (Association of Professional Engineers

                                 and Geoscientists of BC ) Environmental Award

Liquid Train 

The EBPR process at Salmon Arm is unique since it represents state of the art biological phosphorus removal with the use of a trickling filter as part of the main train and uses a footprint of three-quarters of that needed for an activated sludge EBPR process. 

The Stage IIIB program added mixing and a final clarifier to the liquid train to meet plant redundancy and secure a plant capacity of 15,000 population. 

Stage IIIB also includes the addition of Aqua Aerobics disk filtration that reduces the footprint by one-half in comparison to granular media filtration, to achieve an equivalent effluent quality. 

Following filtration, the effluent is disinfected using a Wedico Ideal Horizons UV disinfection treatment. 

Final effluent is stored in a clear well below the UV equipment for reuse in the plant water system. 

The Salmon Arm advanced wastewater treatment process is the most sophisticated wastewater treatment facility in the Columbia Shuswap region and represents an example of a cornerstone of treatment excellence and innovation in the world. (Referenced in 2003, WEF/IWA Wastewater Treatment Plant Design).
 

Ultra Violet Distinfection

New Clarifier in Background

Solids Train 

The autothermal thermophilic aerobic digestion process in Salmon Arm is operated using Turborator aspirator mixer technology. 

Stage IIIB added additional capacity for a Stage IV, 20,000 population.  The treatment provides an exceptional quality (EQ), pasteurized biosolids (Class A) product that is used for reuse on agricultural soils at the City’s farmlands.  A second centrifuge for dewatering capacity redundancy was included with the digester expansion. 

A unique combination of treatment is used to treat the centrate prior to return to plant flow.  The pasteurized biosolids are dewatered to a cake dryness of over 35% dry solids, which reduces the hauling and operations costs by a factor of over 5 to 6 times.

The Salmon Arm facility produces a sustainable biosolids product that is a highly desirable fertilizer, high in nutrients.
 

Centrifuge Addition

Example of Biosolids Application

Odour Treatment 

The Stage IIIB odour collection and treatment solutions are compact to meet site constraints and include two trains of collection and treatment. 

Train A odour treatment is a wet chemical scrubber. It treats foul air from the headworks and from above open weirs as well as from the trickling filter and solids handling facilities. 

Train B is the more sophisticated.  Foul air is collected from the thermophilic digester and dewatering plant, and it is oxidized in a multistage treatment process before being dispersed to the atmosphere through a high velocity dilution fan on the roof of the odour treatment building.  The Train B multi-stage process first includes a nitrifying biostripper tower that oxidizes simple and highly concentrated odour compounds. 

The treated air is then passed though an ozone contact tank to remove more difficult compounds.  Finally, remaining incompletely oxidized compounds are treated in a three stage wet chemical scrubber.  The staged process reduces operating costs since the greater mass of odour is oxidized in the lower operating cost systems. 

The multistage process provides a sustainable highly desirable level of redundancy not found in most facilities.  The Train A process represents the state of the art treatment that can be constructed on small sites where footprint is an important constraint.
 

Train A – Odour Control in foreground,  in front of trickling filter (FGR)

Acoustic Housing, Generator Set, Train B – Odour Control and Filtration Building

Environmental and Social Economic Sustainability 

The Salmon Arm WPCC Stage IIIB Upgrade provides the community with the most highly sophisticated advanced treatment facility in the Columbia Shuswap Region, to secure not only the protection of the Shuswap Lakes but provide reclamation and recycling opportunities for the final effluent and Class A pasteurized biosolids, currently used on the City’s farm. 

Shuswap Lake

The effluent quality and biosolids quality exceeds the Federal EPS, Provincial MSR and City LWMP requirements for protection to the Shuswap Lake and health. The social economic sustainability of the Stage IIIB Upgrade is largely provided through the addition of the odour control systems that eliminate nuisance odour at the WPCC fence line.  As a result of the odour nuisance reduction, the expectations for community livability and recreational growth in the City of Salmon Arm are substantially increased.

The reuse of reclaimed water will become a future benefit to the community, while the reuse of pasteurized biosolids on Salmon Arm farmland is currently a reality.

The facility was designed to provide a pleasing low maintenance aesthetic construction and secure ease of operation through continuity of construction.

Previous Stages of the Plant

The District of Salmon Arm WPCC was originally designed by Dayton & Knight Ltd. in 1973 and operated until 1978 as an activated sludge plant using aerobic digestion and aerated lagoons for sludge storage. 

The 1987 expansion added trickling filters and changed the plant to a trickling filter – solids contact facility. The 1987 expansion included enhanced biological nutrient treatment for removing phosphorus and ammonia from the effluent, without chemical addition. This process, the first of its kind, is called the fixed growth reactor-suspended growth reactor (FGR-SGR) system.
 

In 1995, Dayton & Knight Ltd. provided pre-design, detailed design and construction administration for the Stage IIIA expansion to the enhanced biological nutrient removal facility incorporating the FGR-SGR process at Salmon Arm. 

A high solids centrifuge was installed to dewater digested ATAD biosolids. This reduces return flows and contains odours.  Solids are dewatered and discharged to an enclosed truck box.  Centrate is further treated with electro-flocculation to remove phosphorus and ammonia.

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