Tag Archives: Westport

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VILLAGE DENIED INFRASTRUCTURE GRANT

On Friday, February 5, the Village of Westport was notified that its application for the Ontario Community Infrastructure Fund (OCIF) Application Based Component was denied.  This grant was an absolute necessity to complete the work at the waste water treatment plant and bring the municipality into compliance with the Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change.

It is difficult to comprehend how the Village’s application would not be reviewed, assessed and ranked at or near the top of the applicant lists due to the significant potential risks to the environment posed by the aging Snowfluent system and the Village’s severely limited tax base.  

The Village is contacting Ministry staff for additional explanations and exploring all other possibilities for financing the refurbishment at the waste water treatment plant.  This issue is on the Committee of the Whole Meeting Agenda, being held on Tuesday, February 16 at 7:00 p.m.  

If you have any questions, please contact the Councillor of your choice or me at 613-273-9195.

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Village of Westport – new web site

Great news, everyone!  You spoke.  We listened.  Here is the result.  Check out the new look and design of our new web site.  We hope it is easier to find information and it is certainly a more colourful site.  Some pages are still under construction, however we wanted to go live now and catch up those other pages later.

Check out the new Vintage Westport page – thanks to Christine Janeway for her meticulous research and fascinating photos.  A big shout out to Niki Bresee – for her efforts to bring the new web site from a concept to a reality.

Please give us some feedback if there are features you would like to see or if something is not working for you on the web site.

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Hauling from lagoons to begin on Wednesday

The warm weather this winter and equipment freeze ups have made it very difficult to process effluent at the WWTP.  To date we have only processed a small amount of effluent and the lagoons are at 95.5% full.  According to our processing schedule, the lagoons should be down to 75% by January 18.  At Committee of the Whole on Monday night, we reviewed the activity from the previous 3 years at the WWTP and have serious concerns about the volume of effluent in the lagoons.  One of the major issues is that the flows to the plant have been 2 1/2 times higher in December than in November.  There is little doubt that sump pumps emptying into the system are partly to blame.

With the unpredictability of both the weather and our equipment, we made the decision to haul 10,000 cubic metres from the WWTP to Smiths Falls, beginning tomorrow (Wednesday).  We simply could not risk another weather event like last week’s torrential rains.  We will continue to process effluent at every opportunity.The cost of hauling is grant eligible from the money that we have received for remediation to the lagoons.

I will keep you updated on our progress throughout the winter.  Please contact the Councillor of your choice or me (273-9195) if you have any questions.

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Update on waste water treatment this winter

I have been asked by many people over the past couple of weeks what is happening with the Snowfluent system as they haven’t seen any evidence of snowmaking yet this year.  Although yesterday and today are perfect snow making conditions, the plant has yet to process this year.  Warm weather in December meant that the plant was not turned on.  In order to operate the Snowfluent system, the temperature needs to be -5 C and wind at least 4 km/hr.

On December 31, when the system was being started up, a broken pipe in one of the effluent lines prevented its operation.   The repairs to the pipe are expected to be made by the end of the day Tuesday.  Adjustments  were made to the plant today and I am hopeful that two towers will be operational tonight.  The weather forecast indicates that the unseasonably warm weather returns on Wednesday.

The levels of the lagoons are monitored daily as well as the daily flows from the Village to the lagoons.  The average flows in November were 220 m3, however alarmingly jumped to over 300 m3 in the latter part of December.  Sump pumps that are connected to the waste water system are contributing to this increase.  Please check to see where your sump pump dumps and ensure that it does not add to the lagoon levels.  Council is introducing a water conservation programme this week in the Review Mirror by providing advice on how to reduce the amount of clean water flowing to the waste water system.  Let’s work together to reduce the amount of unnecessary clean water being processed at the waste water plant by 10% this year.

Council met this afternoon to review the current situation.  Our Councillors bring a wealth of experience to the discussions and each of them is committed to asking the right questions to ensure they get all of the information they need to make decisions.  At the end of the meeting, Council is satisfied that monitoring the levels, flows and weather forecasts is sufficient at this point in time,.  Just as a reminder, should it be necessary to haul effluent, there is a solid contingency plan that can be in place with 24 hours notice.

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact a Councillor of your choice or me.