Water, sewer service not affected by plant explosion

YorkRegion.com
January 24, 2014
By Sean Pearce

Your water and sewer service won’t be affected by an explosion and fire at the Duffin Creek Water Pollution Control Plant in Pickering earlier this week.

Firefighters doused a blaze at the sewage treatment plant co-owned by York and Durham regions Tuesday morning.

The explosion and subsequent fire occurred in the plant’s bio-filter building, York environmental services commissioner Erin Mahoney explained, adding the incident only impacts a small section of the plant and is now under investigation by the Ontario Fire Marshal’s office.

“There’s no impact to the liquid treatment of wastewater,” she said. “It only affects one small area on the solid waste side.”

Apart from the bio-filter building, one of the site’s sludge blending tanks was also damaged in the incident, she said.

A media release issued by Durham the day of the fire stressed wastewater treatment was not affected and the plant continued to operate normally. It further noted the facility is a wastewater treatment plant, not a water supply site.

Ms Mahoney also briefed members of York Regional council about the situation yesterday.

“Fortunately, no one was injured,” chairperson Bill Fisch said. “Durham is taking the lead on this.”

Richmond Hill Regional Councillor Vito Spatafora inquired if the damage would have any effect on wastewater capacity for York’s towns and cities.

“There will be absolutely no impact on current capacity or the capacity that’s been allocated to our municipalities as a result of this,” Ms Mahoney responded.

The damage estimate from the fire, which Ms Mahoney cautions is very preliminary, is between $8 million and $15 million.

To put that in perspective, the plant is valued at about $1 billion.

While ownership of the plant is shared between the two regions, Durham operates the facility and holds the insurance on it, Ms Mahoney said.

It’s not yet known what the impact of an insurance claim would be for either municipality, she said, but that bridge may not be crossed for some time, as the investigation is ongoing to determine if the explosion and fire were caused by a design flaw, manufacturing issue or other factors.

York contacted its insurer simply to inform them about what happened, she said.

The purpose of the bio-filter is to remove odorous chemicals, such as hydrogen sulphide, through an organic process, Ms Mahoney said, adding for now, those chemicals will be handled by the site’s boilers.

As another temporary measure, some trucks that would previously have transported sludge directly to the Duffin Creek site will now discharge at an Aurora pumping station to have it sent the rest of the way via sewer, Ms Mahoney said. The idea is to reduce the amount of traffic on site for the time being, she said.

It will likely be months before the damage from the fire can be undone, but the precise timeline won’t be certain until after the fire marshal’s office concludes its investigation, she noted.