Wastewater Treatment Facility project update presented to City Council

Lloydminster, AB/SK – Lloydminster City Council heard from City Administration that the multi-year wastewater treatment facility development and construction project has surpassed 80 per cent completion.

Project Status

The project has progressed past the 80 per cent completion mark. The Design/Construction team is nearing the completion of the construction phase and is actively planning for the cleaning, start up, and function testing of the equipment in anticipation of entering the commissioning phases (three distinct phases have been identified). This is an exciting time as now the facility will start seeing water at the start and eventually incorporate sewage influent through the facility and closer to fully treating the city’s sewage to meet the regulations of the provincial and federal regulators.

There is still some work throughout the site to be completed, such as site grading and drainage, sewage receiving station, fencing and final pipe connections to the existing lagoons. These will all be completed in time for when the facility starts operations and treating influent. The most recent activities have been the installation of the gantry crane (used to lift and lower the membrane cassettes for periodic inspection, cleaning and, in the future, replacement). In addition, the team has started to install the aeration piping into the three bio-reactor tanks. As with every construction project, the final pieces always seem to take the longest to complete, but the team is checking off the to-do list and keeping within the project schedule.

Since the last update, the construction and project team celebrated another successful food drive that was held in December 2022. Being the second engagement since the start of construction, this event was the most successful with the donation of:

• Non-perishable food: 5,036lbs (3,300lbs in 2022)
• Cash donations: $8,500 new/unwrapped toys - $2,500 (estimated)
• Gift cards for the teenagers: $1,200

Procurement/Budget

The Project Management Team has completed a review of the “Cost to Complete” and is tracking the project at $81.2M. The risk register has been updated to remove the items that have been mitigated and adjusted to add others that have the potential to occur until the end of the project. The risk register is currently sitting at $2.06M.

With the project transitioning from construction to start up and commissioning, most of the equipment has been procured and installed. A couple of bigger items to note are the generator and sludge amounts in the lagoons. The generator is slated to be built and delivered this fall (November/December), which was originally supposed to be delivered in June 2023. A temporary unit will be installed to carry the project through to the delivery and installation of the permanent unit. As to the sludge and as part of last year’s work in dewatering Lagoon #1 and #2, it was discovered that the cells still have a sufficient volume of sludge remaining in them. This is something that was not accounted for as these lagoon cells recently had sludge removal work conducted. The Project team is working on a plan to deal with this situation that will ensure the facility will be able to operate as designed.

To date, three Owner’s Directives have been issued to the IPD Partners. These directives are to include the following items in the scope of the project that were not included in the validation report:

• Additional door access readers
• Phones and phone system components
• Replacement of the cladding on the existing facility
• Fire Alarm Monitoring These items will utilize budget dollars that were reallocated from items that were deemed to be not required.

Next Steps

The following timeline provides a high-level view of the milestones for the project:

Although schedule efficiencies were not found in 2022 due to delays in receiving some key equipment, the Project Team is confident the facility will be ready for start up, commissioning and testing in May 2023 while fully operational in the fourth quarter of 2023.