City sewage system can’t keep up with biosolids surge from population boom

CALGARY – The city’s booming population growth is filling more than the suburbs: Calgary’s sewage lagoons are also close to overflowing.

The city pumps its biosolids from wastewater treatment facilities into the southeast Shepard sludge lagoons. Even through the city has a sophisticated system for turning sludge into fertilizer for farmer’s fields, the treatment program cannot keep up with the increasing volume of biosolids, the utilities committee heard Wednesday.

“We are very close to capacity for biosolids and we’re running out of room. We’re a growing city,” said Ald. Brian Pincott.

Planning for a massive composting facility partnered with water and waste services could be the answer.

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“One of our solutions is our composting facility and looking how we partner. It’s about efficiency and cost savings,” Pincott said.

“The environmental liabilities of having organics in the landfill are astounding.”

Council will address the issue of composting and biosolids at its April 15 strategic planning session.

For more than 25 years, the city has been turning treated sludge into nutrient-rich fertilizer. Calgro, the city’s biosolids-to-land program, is a joint effort with the province to use environmentally-friendly alternatives to dumping biosolids in the landfill.

Each year, the city produces nearly 20 million kilograms, or 9,500 tanker truckloads, of biosolids fertilizer. It’s spread on local farming crops as organic fertilizer.

Concerns over pharmaceuticals and other contaminants detected in biosolids is cause for worry, said Ald. Druh Farrell.

“I think we just don’t know the impacts of this in our environment. It sounds good that we’re putting nutrients in the soil, but we don’t know what else is in there,” she said.

The city prepared a master plan for waste organic materials and biosolids in 2011. It calls for one or more alternatives to what it now uses.

City administrators said a future joint composting facility that would partner water and waste departments would be efficient and “support long-term certainty and resiliency for biosolids management.”

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