TransAqua secures $45M to help upgrade wastewater facility

With federal and provincial funding now in place to make a federally-mandated $90-million upgrade to the TransAqua wastewater treatment facility, general manager Kevin Rice says they will be moving quickly to get things in place so construction can begin in the spring of 2017.

The announcement for the combined $45.2 million in government funding was made in Moncton Monday. TransAqua will provide the remaining $45.2 million, said Rice, and won't have to borrow funds to complete the project.

"From a rate payer perspective it's a real win," said Rice.

TransAqua serves Moncton, Riverview and Dieppe.

• TransAqua water upgrade stalled while awaiting funding

While TransAqua had planned to break ground earlier this year in order to meet the federal government's 2020 deadline, Rice said two phases of construction will now have to be done together.

"While it's not ideal it can still be done. The main important part here is we have a treatment process that has to run continuously so we're just going to have to do a lot more planning and have a little more ingenuity in making sure we can get the two years of construction phases done in one year," said Rice.

Deadlines will be met

Rice said TransAqua would still meet the federal regulations by 2020 and meet the Canadian Recreational Water Quality standards by 2021 with the construction of the ultraviolet disinfection plant.

A secondary level of wastewater treatment will be added to the facility so it will meet the current standards of the federal wastewater systems effluent regulations. The treatment will reduce the amount of waste being released into the Petitcodiac River, going from being 75 per cent pure to 97 per cent pure.

"The simple way of saying it is it will remove a lot of solids from the water and it will put more oxygen for the fish to breath," said Rice.

Rice said purchase orders will be issued as soon as possible in order to obtain 2016 pricing on equipment.