facility has always been very stringently monitored in accordance with the requirements of the Ministry of the Environment. " It's not possible for us to have no impact," Fernandes says. " But wastewater treatment plants are not polluters; we are the preventers of pollution and the biggest environmentalists you can find." The new technology installed at Lakeview has enabled the facility to reduce its carbon emissions considerably. Fossil fuel consumption at the incineration plant has been reduced to almost zero, while truck traffic on the road has been decreased by a factor of 10, therefore cutting emissions by a similar amount. Nothing in life, however, remains static. " This expansion will future- proof the plant until 2031," Fernandes concludes. " And that is the scope of our current master plan. But we'll be reviewing it and updating it every five years." If further expansions and adaptations are required, new technology is likely to play an important role. from cold. The incinerators generally operate 24/ 7 and are only taken out of service for maintenance or when work needs to be done to bring extra facilities online. " This has enabled us to cut our gas and oil consumption for incineration to almost zero," Fernandes says. The second phase of expansion is now under way and is projected to cost around $ 100 million. The work is being handled in two steps, the first of which is to increase the aeration capacity from 448 cubic meters to 518 cubic meters by increasing the size of six of the existing aeration tanks. " We are currently in construction mode and will be taking the existing tanks out of service and working on them one at a time." The work will be completed by 2011. Once that is done, the Region of Peel plans to replace the tanks in the oldest part of the plant with new ones. The design work is due to begin in 2011, and the full upgrades should be completed by 2016, bringing the entire facility up to a capacity of 518 cubic meters. The quality of the water discharged from the G. E. Booth ( Lakeview) Wastewater Treatment Facility NOVEMBER 09 www. bus- ex. com 87

88 www. bus- ex. com NOVEMBER 09 Innovation fromt heg round up