By Pete McIntyre

Mayor says wastewater upgrade would get rid of need for lagoons

Feb 28, 2020 | 5:10 AM

It’s now a waiting game for the City of Armstrong which has applied for funding to upgrade its wastewater treatment facility.

The city is seeking ten million dollars from the provincial and federal governments for a project that would allow the treated water to be discharged into creeks, ending the need for lagoons.

The city would borrow three million dollars for its share of the upgrade.

Council gave three readings to the loan authorization bylaw Monday, meaning final approval could be given if the grant is secured.

“It would be absolutely fantastic if we could get it,” said Mayor Chris Pieper. We applied for it last year and were turned down so we’ve redone it with more details and hopefully it will get approved.”

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Pieper said the upgrade would improve their wastewater quality to “almost drinking water standard.”

“We’d be able to discharge it to a creek because it would be cleaner water than what’s in the creek,” he told Vernon Matters.

Pieper says the city uses a large lagoon in Spallumcheen which they use for spray irrigation.

“So we could still use spray irrigation or we could discharge to the creek. But it would upgrade the quality. It would reduce the lagoons in Armstrong. We wouldn’t have to use the lagoons at all. It would all be treated and either discharged to a creek or to our holding pond in Spall for irrigation.”

The mayor says getting rid of the lagoons would be “huge bonus” because they are in need of costly repairs and are an odour problem.

by Pete McIntyre

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