WC146 JanFeb 2026 - Magazine - Page 18
TOP 50 PROJECT
18
WATER C AN ADA • JANUARY/ FEBRUARY 2026
secondary treatment capacity by an additional 108,000 users
to finally achieve the original capacity goal of 1,366,000 users.
Jablonski describes the installation of the new reactor and clarifiers as relatively standard construction in terms of excavation,
shoring, ground anchoring and reinforcement, then placing
and installing concrete tanks and mechanical equipment such
as pumps, pipes, mixers, aeration diffusers, clarifier mechanisms, and hoists, followed by electrical work on instruments
and controls.
Still, there have been notable challenges. One which is a
mainstay with pretty well any wastewater treatment plant
upgrade was preventing operational disruptions in order to
maintain round-the-clock operational continuity throughout
construction and commissioning of all new infrastructure.
“It’s complicated to build any new infrastructure and tie it
WAT E R C A N A D A . N E T
City of Calgary
Bonnybrook was $13 million, and crews spent two years replacing a myriad of components.
With an increasingly turbulent environment forecast for the
years ahead, project planners decided to build in new flood protections for Bonnybrook. Phase 1 saw crews relocate the existing,
beleaguered outfall 900 metres downstream and install a brand
new outfall equipped with in-stream diffusers designed to
increase effluent dispersion to meet evolving regulatory requirements. Phase 1 upgrades also included improvements to Plant
D’s existing anaerobic digesters and biogas system, and construction of a flood protection berm around the east and south sides
of the facility to offer one-in-100 year flood protection.
In 2024, following a three-year pause which saw finishing
touches such as landscaping, paving and civil works attended to,
the project team launched into Phase 2. By this time, the estimated population within Bonnybrook’s catchment area had
reached 1,181,000, and with Bonnybrook designed to accommodate 1,258,000 users, the urgency was clear.
However, the project team is now breathing a sigh of relief,
with the planned commissioning this past month of the remaining secondary treatment infrastructure, including a third new
BNR bioreactor and two new secondary clarifiers to boost
A SEPARATE PROJECT, not included within the parameters of
the Plant D expansion, has seen a power cogeneration facility
built to capture Bonnybrook’s methane gas releases and produce
energy to help offset the high energy demands that routinely
come from intensive waste treatment processes as well as
the plant’s high demand for heat. “We’re now generating four
megawatts of electricity using our own renewable source of
methane that’s produced on-site,” says Gabrielle Jablonski,
senior project engineer with the city’s infrastructure services
department. “This allows us to reutilize the energy that we have at
our disposal to offset the electricity that we use to run the plant.”
