WC144 SeptOct 2025 - Magazine - Page 20
TOP 50 PROJECT
Fresh Start
for Inverness
New wastewater treatment
project a breath of fresh air for
Cape Breton community
BY SAUL CHERNOS
Y ALL ACCOUNTS, the
wastewater treatment plant
at Inverness County, Nova
Scotia had passed its best-before date. The plant, opened
in the 1970s as a two-cell lagoon
system, underwent a major upgrade
in 1996, with aeration, aerobic sludge
digestion, secondary clarification, and
UV disinfection all added. However,
rapid residential and commercial
growth and new golf courses soon
strained the plant’s capacity.
The lagoon-based system, an activated sludge biological treatment process designed to remove biodegradable
organics, experienced odour issues in
2019, leading to complaints about
foul air and several beach closures that
summer along the otherwise picturesque stretch of the Gulf of St. Lawrence that accommodates the plant’s
underwater outfall. “It’s embarrassing
to have to explain to tourists what
this smell is,” Rose Mary MacDonald,
president of the Inverness Development Association, told journalists back
then.
B
Saul Chernos is a freelance
writer for Water Canada.
20
WATER C AN ADA • SEP TEMBER/OCTOBER 2025
Inverness County attributed the odour and bacterial releases to
the discharge of high organic loadings into the wastewater collection system. Deputy chief administrative officer Melanie Beaton
tells Water Canada that the incident exacerbated equipment malfunctions already being experienced at the aging treatment plant
and caused the system to go septic. Ultimately, Beaton says, both
the incident and unrelenting growth helped the county articulate
its case for funding to renew its wastewater infrastructure.
Now, six years later, work has begun, with the municipal,
provincial and federal governments committing $6.4, $7.9 and
$9.6 million respectively towards a $24-million basket of measures designed to replace aging infrastructure and increase operational efficiencies and the treatment capacity.
WAT E R C A N A D A . N E T
