H2O: Ideas & Action for Canada's Water

Recent news from the city of Portage La Prairie is really encouraging because they are trying progressive new technologies to remove phosphorus and nitrogen from their municipal wastewater treatment plant. However the most interesting part of what they are doing is recycling the phosphorus and turning it into a fertilizer that can be sold to farmers. It can potentially reduce the cost of good wastewater treatment by developing a revenue stream out of what we once considered simply waste. The phosphorus extraction technique comes from Ostara Technologies and the nitrogen technique from Veolia.

Lake Winnipeg west side shore

This is excellent news for Lake Winnipeg and possibly other lakes. Decreasing the amount of phosphorus and nitrogen that is in the effluent we release in our wastewater plants and lagoons throughout Manitoba, will ultimately decrease the food supply for the blue-green algae that is threatening our water bodies.
Another piece of good news came with the announcement that the province of Manitoba will not grant the city of Winnipeg another extension for upgrading their North End Sewage Treatment plant. The city of Winnipeg has been dragging its feet on getting all 3 wastewater treatment plants up to standard. The West End plant is operating within guidelines but both the South and North End Plants are behind schedule by several years. Given that the city of Winnipeg is the single largest point source of phosphorus to Lake Winnipeg, it is shameful that we haven’t dealt with this problem to this point. I’m glad to know that it will all be complete within 5 years by 2019.
So congratulations to the city of Portage La Prairie for their leadership on this. Let’s make sure Winnipeg follows suit.