South Red Deer Regional Wastewater System

The growth corridor between Olds, Alberta, and Red Deer, Alberta, is looking at a future population of 150,000, putting stress on the existing wastewater infrastructure and reducing the quality of wastewater that was discharged into natural water systems. This new system will transport wastewater from the central Alberta communities to the City of Red Deer Wastewater Treatment Plant, and preserve the quality of the Red Deer River from the Dickson Dam to the City of Red Deer.

Four new pumping stations handle wastewater from their municipality and the upstream facilities. The Olds station pumps to Bowden, Bowden then pumps to Innisfail and Penhold. Each station becomes progressively larger to accommodate the accumulated flow. Equipped with both vapor phase and liquid phase odor control systems, each station helps mitigate nuisance emissions from the raw sewage—which controls downstream odor generation at receiving facilities. HVAC and gas detection systems were installed, and standby generators were included in case of utility failure. 

The 90 kilometer jointless wastewater line is one of the longest systems of its kind in Canada. The pipeline is made of high density polyethylene, a corrosion proof material designed to reduce the possibility of leakage. To further protect the environment, we used trenchless design to minimize impacts for over 10,000 meters of pipe, including cased bores and HDD. 

To permit remote operation, our team completed the stations with a comprehensive supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) system. Finally, we completed a hydraulic transient analysis of the system with recommendations on air valve locations, check valve types, and pipe pressure class.