Merrick Landfill to get new leachate treatment facility

North Bay City Council announced an upgrading on Merrick Landfill to include a leachate treatment plant at the site.

Council's authorized the Landfill Site Merrick, Leachate Management Project, at a cost of $1,700,000.

This project involves the development of plans to treat leachate at the Merrick Landfill Site.

"Right now we have Conestoga rovers out of Waterloo doing the detailed design of a treatment facility," says Manager of Engineering and Public Works, Allan Korell.

Korell hopes to be able to have tendered documents ready for the fall to actually construct it, using funds from the 2012 and 2012 Capital Budget.

With some pilot studies done between the City and Queen's University, Korell says that they've found what they think is the best solution to treat the leachate at the Landfill site.

The water, currently being recycled, can only be reused so many times and treating falls in line with provincial government standards.

"Right now it's recycled, it's collected, it's pumped and then put back on top of the Landfill site but eventually we'd like to actually treat it, so once it goes through the treatment facility, we can put it back into the environment," says Korell.

"It's a lot better for the environment."

The process of treating leachate water, using components of leachate collection systems such as liners, draining systems, filters and sumps, seems to merely disinfect organics in the run off that might be better left to mother nature to allow plants to propagate with.

Real concern in the runoff of course is the heavy metals and solvents and byproducts of chemical breakdown that can end up in the leachate and the environment.

In addition, the process for treating them might well be extremely complicated and expensive.

The multimillion dollar project certainly is a step in the right direction but it's some people's point of view that organic waste is best left of the environment to reabsorb.

Basically, some people seem concerned they are simply chemically neutralizing any organic nutrients left in the water used to compact and manage the burying of garbage.

Hopefully, this includes solutions that would target possible hire level carcinogens, heavy metals and solvents in the water but the process is unclear as to what the water will be going through in order to mitigate these concerns.

Councillor Chris Mayne says that implementing a leachate treatment program is a requirement and an investment for the city.

"It protect the water that runs into Lake Nipissing and effects a number of people," says Mayne.