CL looks at successes, failures and future of its unique Eco-Machine
By Michelle Croissant
Area ‘C’ Director Grace McGregor recently welcomed Alternative Wastewater Consultant Scott Sargert to the Christina Lake Community Hall to speak about the Lake’s Living Machine, or Eco-Machine™, and how it works. Sargert was brought in to provide some much needed operations support for the Eco-Machine™, housed within the building behind the Welcome Centre.
A small but enthusiastic audience of 14 gathered to watch Sargert’s PowerPoint presentation, Cleaning the Waters: Ecological Design and Living Technologies,and engage in detailed dialogue about the Christina Lake system. Sargert is an aquatic biologist and the senior designer for John Todd Ecological Design (JTED). His own environmental consulting business assists other organizations and design firms who have an interest in incorporating natural systems into their designs.
The meeting began with an introduction by McGregor, who explained that Sargert only takes on special projects, and “I was quite happy to hear that we are a special project." Sargert expressed his gratitude to the community. "What a beautiful place you live in! Holy Smokes! Thank you for bringing me to Canada. This has been a real extreme treat!"
Capturing the audience’s attention with his candid style and enthusiasm, Sargert’s wealth of experience and knowledge of biological processes quickly became evident as he spoke about some of the original research and projects he worked on with Dr. Todd. Photos and graphs accompanied his descriptions.
Sargert concluded the presentation part by saying that was pleasantly surprised on his tour of the CL facility. "You've got a really solid, beautiful system that needs some tweaking and we've got the resources to help you with that, so I'm here to say we're going to make it work and put you guys on the map,” he assured the group. ‘If you guys aren't successful with the system that you have, it puts a black eye on all of us, so I'm here to help you guys get this thing to be the best it can be."
A discussion period followed. The foremost question was about what the system needs to be fully functioning. The CL Eco-Machine, built by Eco-Tek, hasn’t been running efficiently since it was built in 2011. Initially, water was to be recharging the aquifer on site, then eventually used for bedding plants, a community garden and subsurface drip irrigation of the surrounding parkland; however, many of the plants have failed to thrive for more than a few weeks.
"Although it's processing sewage fine, it's not doing what I want it to do, or Bob [Dupee] wants it to do, or most of us want it to do," said McGregor. There are plants in there, but it's not working well, "So we're going to find that balance once and for all and have it run right."
Sargert described the mechanical and management issues that need to be addressed. "First of all, the plant systems that were installed in your system are tropical.” The plants should never have been put into this system, as the photoperiod here will stress plants that require constant hot sun. He explained that the whole planting scheme is off and there is no solid waste management. "Moving solids around is very, very crucial and I don't know why they didn't do that, but we will need to add that."
"I'm sorry you've had the experience you did," sympathized Sargert. "I can't take any responsibility for the guys that installed this, and worse, their knowledge of the operation seems very archaic to me—so they're going off documentation and manuals that are 20 years old too."
Sargert will be making a list of suggestions in an exhaustive report, including what indigenous plants to source. Operator Martin Christman is there only once a week, so two of the four tanks should contain low maintenance, highly rooted plants. The system needs to get all of its food during the short summer, as there will be nothing all winter.
Plants like daffodils and tulips may be suitable as they store energy in their bulbs during the summer, go dormant for winter, then have enough reserve energy in the spring to grow again. If you stress willows by hacking them back, they will deepen their roots; this root mass traps solids, or muck, during the summer that provides food for winter. Dogwood, a prolific water seeker, may also be ideal. Wetland grasses are better for outside applications because they get stressed easily and are prone to whiteflies.
For the third tank, Sargert is looking at plants that will store their own energy. At this stage, he wants older solids to keep moving forward. If this population of bacteria and protozoa does a good job, they will be sent to the front of the system because “now this group of organisms have proven themselves to treat this waste; and then the old soldiers, we're going to take out." This will be a bed in the back that will evaporate the water and result in potting soil.
The third tank will likely need to be managed by community volunteers, like high school students or interns, as the operator will be busy dealing with the rest. The educational and research opportunities that this type of system can create are invaluable. Former Welcome Centre project manager Bob Dupee said, "The potential is huge if it gets sorted out and gets working the way it's supposed to be. A lot of these facilities, there's college students that come in do their doctorates on the whole system and what's going on there.”
Sargert said that school kids could also get involved by collecting samples around the area. "The milk jugs and the turkey basters would be great, and that's something that we would do for the first season on commissioning systems." He said it doesn't appear that was done at all with the CL system.
Sargert compared small systems to a petri dish or aquarium that may need to have the ecology re-established. "What we bring to the table is operations support…even if we do literally have to clean the thing out and start anew, that's something that we're going to do." They know the system works, but it needs the right plants and substrate.
"Really what you want is muck." Sargert explained that dark mud contains anaerobes, a class of bacteria that lie in wait for the system to get in trouble—for example, if someone at the Visitor Centre inadvertently dumps a gallon of cleaner down the drain—and then “they pounce." Sargert describes milk chocolate mud as "the happy zone." The equalization tank helps restore the healthy balance.
When asked about possible contaminants in the system, Sargert said the only chemical that will hold an Eco-machine down is quaternary ammonia, a very toxic substance found in Lysol with an extremely long residual in the environment. The remaining sediments in the CL system from pre-existing RV waste were only recently disposed of, so it’s possible that quaternary ammonia is impacting the tanks.
Safety data sheets will be obtained for all chemicals used at the centre. Sargert will personally monitor what's going on, so if someone changes a product he will review what that is. He gave an example of another system that would go black every 10 days. They discovered the problem was water softener—a shot of salt hitting the system regularly. "It's anticipating that kind of stuff," and then making it work.
On a positive note, Sargert was impressed with the quality of the structure. "What is good and I'm actually impressed with, is the bones of this thing.” The tankage is high quality and the blower is one of the best he’s seen. “Mechanically you've got all the parts there. All we have to do is get the biology right."
Sargert will be giving Christman all the resources he needs for his job, but the community will need to step up if they want to take the system further. "His [Christman's] responsibility is to the water, not to the plants, and you have to realize it's not what you see above the water that's doing the work, it's what's below." The bacteria are doing the work, and the operator's job is to provide for the bacteria.
Sargert will also be helping Christman come up with an integrated pest management plan. Sargert commented that he is a big fan of parasites. "The cool thing is that once the pest is gone, the parasite goes away. Not that you want that to happen." He explained that creating a balance by maintaining a low level infestation is desirable."
Sargert negated concerns about the facility output on the lake and drinking water supply. "We're going for tertiary treatment, which is the highest level of treatment; and your disposal field is designed to filter out, certainly from a microbial standpoint, all of those critters." The water output from solar aquatic systems is considered reservoir quality in the U.S.
It was emphasized that the water output from the system is not discharging into the lake. It is going into the ground and will take 10 to 40 years to make it from the field to the lake, plus it goes through a UV filter. "We're not affecting the lake whatsoever," stated Christman.
The only waste being dumped in the system right now is two to three m3 of sewage from the Welcome Centre. Sargert made clear that treating septage is a different matter and would require a different design, as would RV waste, which contains numerous chemicals that inhibit bacterial growth. Preliminary treatment would be required "to get it to the point that had the characteristics of sewage, before it moved on into the solar aquatic system." This would be a big undertaking stressed McGregor, and "We're not going down that road right now."
Despite the challenges faced with the Eco-Machine, McGregor continues to stand behind the greater vision. "For us, it was all about the whole big picture of ecology and balance and doing it more naturally, and that's what you're going to find Christina Lake going forward more and more with, is this is how you should do it or this is how you can do it, you don't have to do it that way—there's options."
Sargert remained at the Lake through Thursday, and is now completing his report in cooperation with Christman. The information from the report will be used to determine what next steps need to be taken. McGregor will continue to keep the community updated about the project.
Background
An Eco-Machine™ is an efficient ecological wastewater restoration system capable of achieving high quality water output without the need for hazardous chemicals. Traditional wastewater technologies are basically phased filtration systems, which are now struggling to address what is already dissolved, including heavy metals, viruses and endocrine disruptors. Eco-Machines are designed to mimic the cleansing functions of wetland ecosystems and can turn toxic sludge into water that is cleaner than many municipal water supplies. Aquatic biologist John Todd invented the Eco-Machine™, originally called the Living Machine.
In 2011, Christina Lake became the location of the second cold-climate solar aquatics water treatment facility in North America, built to service the Christina Living Arts Centre and a proposed seniors housing project. The first cold-climate facility was built two years earlier in Cynthia, Alberta by the same company.
For more information on Eco-Machines click here
For John Todd’s clients and case studies click here
For videos featuring John Todd’s work, including a 2010 TEDx presentation, click here