Sunday, February 16, 2025
February 16, 2025

LCC gets update on geotube pilot

A liquid waste “dewatering” test using geotube technology on Salt Spring is complete, according to Capital Regional District (CRD) staff, who hope to have solid data to bring to the island’s elected decision-makers in the spring. 

Waste material drawn from Salt Spring’s septic tanks, as well as biosolid “sludge” from the island’s two wastewater treatment facilities at Ganges and on Maliview Drive, is currently collected –– alongside material from restaurant grease traps and water treatment plant sludge –– at a facility at Burgoyne Bay, where it all waits to be eventually transferred by truck and ferry to Vancouver Island for disposal. 

Salt Spring’s Local Community Commission (LCC), exercising its authority over what is perhaps that body’s least glamorous delegated service, had asked for the testing as part of a weight- and cost-saving plan to reduce the amount of material currently trucked off island. The annual cost for handling, hauling and disposal of Salt Spring’s septage and sludge already exceeds $800,000 and is predicted to top $1 million in the next few years. 

Geotubes were examined as an alternative to screw press systems that accomplish the same task –– making that material weigh less by removing water –– differently, and the geotube trial took place in December, according to CRD senior manager Stephen Henderson, who quipped the system’s membrane material in the scaled-down test was a little like a “big cheesecloth” that allowed liquids to exit but retained solid material.  

“[Operational geotubes] are about 30 feet long, and eight feet wide,” Henderson told commissioners. “Brown liquid goes in, and a clearer liquid comes out.” 

Results of that testing are now being analyzed, Henderson said, to determine how much ammonia and dissolved oxygen were in the effluent and what percentage of “dryness” was achieved for the solids. The engineers from Ontario-based Bishop Water that conducted the trial are also preparing estimates on how many of the geotubes would be needed at the Burgoyne Bay liquid waste facility –– and how the facility itself could be optimized for them. 

“We hope to have that report within two weeks,” Henderson said. “We’ll review it internally with our three wastewater treatment plants — from McLoughlin [Point], Panorama and Ganges — in February and then ideally come back [to LCC] in March with opportunities.”

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