CENSOL & POLLUTECH have been carrying out this type of process audit for the past twenty years, and during the past ten years has developed a program that has resulted in the successful evaluation and re-rating of dozens of WPCP's.

These projects include the Regional Municipality of Hamilton-Wentworth's WPCP's at Woodward Avenue and King Street, both of which discharge to Hamilton Harbour, and both of which have undergone nitrification evaluations and implementation of energy savings on the aeration systems. Within the Regional Municipality of Halton, we have undertaken a major study on nitrification, including full scale oxygen transfer evaluations, at the Milton WPCP, and various other less significant audits at other Halton plants. For the Burlington Skyway WPCP we have completed two detailed laboratory scale studies dealing with the impact of sanitary landfill leachate and the impact of supernatant from the Regional Sludge Storage Facility. Both of these Skyway studies have included an evaluation of the added loading relative to oxygen supply, sludge settling, sludge production and total ammonia nitrogen removal.

In the nearby Regional Municipality of Niagara we have undertaken major audits at the Niagara Falls, Welland, Port Dalhousie, and Port Colborne treatment facilities. These Niagara projects have included the first full-scale RBC facility for secondary treatment in Canada and the first MOE approved combined biological/physical-chemical facility for nitrification and stormwater treatment. In the District of Muskoka we have conducted a full scale plant audit for phosphorus removal and nitrification for discharge to environmentally sensitive Fairy Lake. Similar studies are underway in eastern Ontario, the Maritimes and have previously been completed in Winnipeg and Calgary.

CENSOL & POLLUTECH previously completed preliminary audits of sewage treatment facilities at Transport Canada (CATA) international airports, including the effects of domestic, aircraft and maintenance wastes on several types and sizes of biological treatment facilities.

On the international scene, CENSOL has been active in the evaluation of West German marine WPCP's, in it's capacity as a "Recognized Marine Testing Facility", on behalf of Environment Canada and the Canadian Coast Guard. We completed the transfer of Canadian technologies for process audits to the Generalitat de Catalunya (Spain), including joint venture testing, regulatory control, monitoring techniques and process design. One of the key technical components of this project is the transfer of technology for process audits, principally for advanced waste water treatment facilities, utilizing the technology described int his proposal. On the implementation side, we have completed the process audits and upgrading of five (5) treatment facilities in Kemer, Turkey and six (6) plants in Maracaibo, Venezuela. International waste treatment experience includes a tannery in Korea, a textile mill in Hong Kong, a propylene glycol plant in mainland China, and a health care manufacturing facility in Vietnam. Most recently, we have completed major projects for a distillery, brewery and sugar mill in Nicaragua.

Our project team includes staff who have been involved "hands-on" in the studies described previously. Richard Laughton was responsible for the audits at Woodward Avenue, King Street, Niagara Falls, Welland, Port Dalhousie, Milton, Port Colborne, Winnipeg, and Carleton Place. Greg Brown has acted as the Senior Process Engineer and/or Project Manager at the studies in Welland, Huntsville, Niagara Falls, Port Dalhousie and Carleton Place. Technical staff have participated in all of the above studies and are supported by an in-house laboratory fully capable of carrying out the analysis required.

Our laboratory has been approved for MISA analysis (biological and chemical) and is a member of the Canadian Association of Environmental Analytical Laboratories (CAEAL). We participate regularly in round-robin testing programs with the Ministry of the Environment, and several Regional Municipalities. We routinely complete analytical work for the Regional Municipality of Halton, for both water and sewage plants, and industrial waste samples for prosecution. We are well known to the Ministry of Environment in the Regional Offices responsible for effluent requirements. Approvals staff from the MOE have critically reviewed and approved our concepts on several occasions, as can be confirmed by the Approvals Branch of the Ontario Ministry of the Environment.

Through our involvement in operational audits at numerous water pollution control plants across Canada, we have been able to successfully demonstrate that the best approach to optimizing a treatment facility is to carry out an operational audit on each of the individual unit processes at the plant. Historically, the approach to the plant expansion process has been to create "mirror images" of existing treatment processes. Operational audits have clearly indicated that this is not a realistic approach for the expansion of either the physical unit processes or the biological unit processes. This historical approach of desk top design also results in significantly higher capital and operating costs without necessarily ending up with a plant that is able to meet the effluent criteria.

The key to the operational audit in the majority of facilities is the review of the design and operation of the biological portion of the plant, or that section most commonly referred to as the secondary treatment facilities. Work required on the operational audit for inlet works, primary sedimentation and support services, can generally be tied to providing optimum conditions for the secondary biological process. It is important to understand that the secondary treatment biological process is a living system and as such, it has specific requirements for hydraulic retention time, solids retention time, solids wasting, nutrient control, oxygen supply, etc., following the same principles of any living biological system. There are only certain conditions in the biological facility that will provide for the required level of BOD₅ and ammonia nitrogen removal to meet the stringent effluent requirements put in place by modern regulatory agencies. The purpose of the audit, therefore, is clearly to establish what these specific operating conditions are, what facilities are available that can be used to accomplish these conditions, and for any specific capital or operating requirements that are not in place, what must be added to provide the necessary facilities.

The scope of work for a process audit must be established so the team can determine the operational status of the facility with respect to effluent quality, phosphorus removal efficiency, operational flexibility, solids handling capacity and the presence of process bottlenecks. The evaluation must, therefore, be carried out on an individual unit process basis, firstly to establish the operational flexibility that is available at the plant, and thereafter, to optimize the existing facilities prior to determining what additional facilities are required to meet the new effluent criteria. Several similar studies conducted by the CENSOL & POLLUTECH team have demonstrated that one of the most common process bottlenecks is the inability to manage or control solids and solids wasting from the facility. As this has a significant impact on the ability to provide standard BOD removal as well as ammonia nitrogen and phosphorus removal, this will be a key component of the study. This necessitates the extensive full scale testing on the primary clarifiers ability to remove and dispose of primary solids, the ability of the secondary clarifiers to thicken and remove biological sludge to the anaerobic digesters, and the ability of the digesters to provide adequate digestion facilities and clarified supernatant for a return to the front end of the plant. Execution of the tasks on the individual unit processes to achieve this will result in the establishment of a solids balance around the facility, and clearly define any weak areas in a solids handling aspect, inclusive of those associated with primary solids, biological solids and chemical solids from phosphorus removal.

Audit programs often refer to the establishment of the existing facilities capacity to achieve nitrification, interim measures that would be required to optimize the existing facility for nitrification, and the extent of plant upgrading to meet the anticipated ammonia discharge limits established by the regulatory agency. Staff from CENSOL & POLLUTECH have conducted similar process audits at the Woodward Avenue Sewage Treatment Plant, and the King Street Sewage Treatment Plant, both of which impact on the nitrogen loading to Hamilton Harbour. Full scale evaluations at these plants have lead to optimization of the biological systems, with and without nitrification, and establishment of cost savings on energy costs for aeration. At the Woodward Avenue plant cost savings in excess of $1,000,0000 per year were implemented without any capital improvements. At the King Street STP a procedure to implement nitrification was put in place with only minor changes to the existing aeration facilities. Similarly, we have conducted nitrification studies at the Regional Municipality of Halton's Milton treatment plant, and the Regional Municipality of Niagara's Welland Treatment Plant, to establish operating guidelines for optimized nitrification. Specific conditions for nitrification in terms of hydraulic retention time, solids retention time, oxygen supply, and solids handling have been established for these facilities and a similar approach could be taken for any other facility. To optimize biological nitrification this has involved continuous dissolved oxygen profiles, interpreted relative to dissolved oxygen monitoring and oxygen uptake rate profiles, with subsequent implementation of computerized dissolved oxygen monitoring and control (Welland).

In previous projects completed by our study team, the full scale audits have included the establishment of seasonal effluent criteria that are obtainable at each individual facility on the basis of the loading to the facility, the assimilative capacity of the receiving water body and the climatic conditions experienced in this area of Canada. We have been able to demonstrate at the Milton, Welland, and King Street sewage treatment plants that nitrification could be improved within the existing design and operation of the secondary biological treatment plant, without significant capital cost increases.

With the introduction of nitrification facilities there is concern with respect to the increase in energy consumption, associated with oxygen supply to promote the nitrification. We have clearly demonstrated at the Milton Water Pollution Control Plant, that standard text book design numbers for biological nitrification do not necessary apply at the full scale, and that optimization of the facility with respect to complete mix versus plug flow regimes can have a significant impact on the oxygen demand of the facility. This work initially completed at the Milton Water Pollution Control Plant has been verified by extensive pilot plant testing and full scale testing at the Welland Water Pollution Control Plant. These studies were carried out utilizing a balanced approach of continuous dissolved oxygen measurement in the aeration tanks, as related to oxygen uptake rates, with variations in influent loading and mixed liquor volatile solids concentrations. Our work at the nitrification facilities for the Welland Water Pollution Control Plant have resulted in the placement of a dissolved oxygen monitoring and control system to optimize aerator horsepower input.

Successful operation of a biological waste treatment facility to attain nitrification and low effluent phosphorus requires close attention to the solids handling facilities and in particular, to the suitability of existing secondary clarifiers to remove fine particulate solids. Previous work conducted by the Pollutech Environmental team at plants in the Regional Municipality of Halton, Hamilton-Wentworth, Niagara, and the District of Muskoka, have clearly demonstrated the necessity for the control of density currents in the secondary clarifiers. Throughout several of the on-going projects we have been able to demonstrate how simple mechanical changes to clarifier mechanisms, and/or effluent weirs can achieve significant improvements in operating capacity by emitting solids scouring and loss over the effluent weirs. With the on-set of biological nitrification there was always the concern of the development of pinfloc, which further supports the requirement for an evaluation of the capabilities of the secondary clarifiers to handle this new type of biological floc. The on-set of nitrification also requires that attention be paid to he potential for biological de-nitrification to occur in the bottom of the secondary clarifiers as a result of an inadequate or too slow removal of the biological mass. The clarifiers must, therefore, be optimized in terms of the ability not only to handle a biological pinfloc, but also to remove the nitrified floc quickly from the clarifiers.

Upon completion of the individual process audits, a generalized plan can be formulated to establish what are the minimal capital and operational changes required to meet the interim requirement for advanced nitrification, as well as the future requirements as established by the regulatory agency. A summary document can be prepared outlining the existing capacity of each unit process under peak and average flow conditions, modifications that can be easily and inexpensively put in place to optimize or improve operation of the existing facility, followed by a detailed plan for future capital requirements to upgrade the facility to meet the minimum effluent criteria.

In keeping with the general concept of the approvals process in the Province of Ontario, it should be clearly understood that the audit must deal, not only with the requirements specific to municipality and the associated remedial action plant, but also to standard requirements on the Ministry of the Environment. In that regard attention must be paid to the following:

With respect to most municipal facilities, these concerns or questions are important, principally with respect to the handling of peak flows and/or storm water flows. This is particularly important where biological nitrification is being implemented as several full scale studies have clearly shown that the biological nitrification process can be most easily optimized and maintained in good operating condition through the control of hydraulic loading to the facility. For example, an unique facility has been recently installed at the Regional Municipality of Niagara Welland water pollution control plant, to allow for a combination of advanced biological nitrification with effluent filtration in combination with chemical treatment for storm water flows, and effluent blending prior to filtration. Extensive pilot plant testing and full scale field evaluations, clearly demonstrated that the integration of these two technologies, rather than straight biological treatment, could produce a superior effluent quality at considerably reduced costs. This is important where optimization of the plant includes, not only the technical aspects of the project, but the financial constraints that are imposed. The group from CENSOL & POLLUTECH have worked closely with the Ministry of the Environment in the Regional Office as well as at Head Office Approvals to establish the acceptability of combined biological and physical chemical treatment.

Chemically assisted primary treatment (Physical/chemical) has been shown to produce a superior effluent under storm conditions to that achieved with primary treatment only. It is important to note that the MOE policy manual states the following:

"Secondary treatment, or equivalent, may be that provided by biological processes including the activated sludge variations or lagoon systems, physical/chemical, or combinations of these process producing an effluent quality as stated".

To formulate a plan for the integration of the existing facilities at a normal WPCP, it is essential to have a complete understanding of the individual unit processes. With the ultimate aim to produce a high quality effluent, the plant must operate under optimum conditions, and a weak link anywhere in the system can render the plant inadequate.

With the requirement for nitrification and high efficiency phosphorus removal, the loading to the plant becomes critical, both in terms of external and internal plant loads. Biological nitrification systems are sensitive to general conditions (pH, temperature), industrial type wastes (metal plating shops, landfill leachate), as well as operating parameters (SRT, HRT, dissolved oxygen). Failure to monitor and/or control any one of the important parameters can result of early failure of the biological system.

Hands-on operating experience of the CENSOL & POLLUTECH team with biological nitrification facilities in Ontario has demonstrated a tendency towards the formation of pin floc in the biological plant effluent. For this reason, many of these facilities include effluent filtration as a means to control the effluent solids. Typical examples in this area include nitrification facilities at the Regional Municipality of Hamilton-Wentworth's King Street STP, The Region of Niagara's Welland WPCP and the Regional Municipality of Halton's Milton WPCP. Nitrification facilities operated without effluent filtration experience high effluent BOD numbers from the particulate floc. Integration of the filtration also assists in the achievement of low effluent phosphorus levels (i.e. < 0.5 mg/L). Only through the implementation of full scale testing can the requirement for effluent filtration be evaluated.

To accommodate the need for nitrification requires a plant that is capable of providing the operating conditions necessary. For example, the following can greatly assist in optimizing a biological nitrification facility, and will thus be evaluated during the test program:

The work proposed for treatment plant evaluations can be expanded upon somewhat to include the utilization of on-line monitoring equipment, as previously described in the reports for a number of Ontario water pollution control plants

Although not clearly identified in many requests for WPCP audits, there is a significant impact on the secondary biological process from the anaerobic sludge digesters if they are not capable of handling the wasted solids from the biological plant and concurrently returning a clear supernatant to the front end of the facility. This is particularly important with biological nitrification facilities where the high ammonia loadings from the digesters can have a significant impact on the biological treatment facilities. Evaluation and optimization of the anaerobic digesters, therefore, must be considered as one of the most significant components on this study.

To complete the work of a complex audit we generally propose to execute the following major tasks:

CENSOL & POLLUTECH have been involved in several laboratory, pilot, and full scale treatability evaluations that have led to the acceptance of new treatment technologies in the Province of Ontario. The projects have included:

These particular applications are of great importance to our projects as they demonstrate the acceptability of using physical/chemical treatment facilities, in conjunction with biological treatment using either suspended growth (activated sludge) or fixed film (RBC) type technology. Through these processes it has been clearly demonstrated that it is not mandatory to build full scale biological treatment facilities that must handle both the average dry weather flow and the peak wet weather flows. The technical improvements to the process design and the overall economic considerations have clearly demonstrated the suitability and acceptability of these alternative technologies. We are not suggesting at this early date that this is the specific approach that must be used at all facilities, but that an open mind must be kept with respect to the technology to be utilized. As we have no vested interest in the follow up work associated with this project, our report will be totally independent and based on the most practical solution for the case at hand.

For a normal audit the major alternatives that have to be evaluated with the plant evaluation are as follows:

The acceptability of alternative technologies is best demonstrated by full scale plants in Ontario. For example, the Niagara Falls RBC facility was designed as a biological tack-on to an existing physical/chemical treatment facility, treating not only municipal discharges, but also heavy industrial discharges from the wine and food producing industries. Although conventional design guidelines called for an organic loading of 1.0 lb of soluble BOD₅ per 1000 square feet of surface media the pilot plant evaluation clearly demonstrated that by adding on a RBC facility after physical/chemical treatment plant the required effluent criteria could be achieved at average organic loadings of 2.2 lb per 1000 square feet of media, with peak short term loadings as high as 3.5 lb per 1000 square feet of media. These tests which were carried out side-by-side to a pilot plant activated sludge system clearly demonstrated that not only did the RBC provide a superior effluent quality, but with the heavy industrial input to the City of Niagara Falls an activated sludge facility could not operate. The results of the pilot plant study were used to support an application for "Certificate of Approval" for this system well in excess of the acceptable Ministry of the Environment guidelines and contrary to the personal beliefs of the approval engineers from the Ministry of the Environment. However, the facility continues to operate to this day in the manner exactly predicted by the pilot plant evaluation. Had a facility been installed using standard design guidelines detailed in the "Green Book", a conventional activated sludge facility would have been constructed which would have stood no chance of operating during the food processing season.

Another example is the combined physical/chemical treatment facilities which have been constructed for the City of Welland, as well as those which are under construction for Port Dalhousie, and are in the final rounds of evaluation for the Town of Carleton Place. All of these plants involve the use of physical/chemical treatment in conjunction with conventional biological treatment using the activated sludge process. For the City of Welland the process is unique in that physical/chemical treatment is used to treat peak wet weather flows so as not to interfere with the operation of the sensitive biological nitrification facility. In addition, effluent filtration was included and has a dual role for filtration of combined physical/chemical secondary effluent and/or straight biological effluent. For the Port Dalhousie Water Pollution Control Plant, up front physical chemical treatment was added for side streams to handle wet weather flows in excess of the proven rated capacity of the existing biological waste treatment plant. Through laboratory and full scale treatability tests it was clearly demonstrated that the combination of the physical/chemical and biological treatment could produce a superior effluent quality than a complete biological facility and at significantly reduced cost. The combined physical/chemical and biological process for the Town of Carleton Place has been selected due to the high extraneous flows entering the sewerage system from very old leaky sewers in an area with a very high water table. The final decision has not been made as to whether RBC technology or conventional activated sludge technology will be utilized with the Carleton Place facility.

In all the case studies discussed above, CENSOL & POLLUTECH have been involved with municipal staff, the civil/mechanical design engineering firms, and the Ontario Ministry of the Environment, and by following acceptable procedures we have been able to achieve the approval of the Ministry of the Environment for the process design of these facilities as well as approval from the Regional level for the effluent quality criteria that are required. In most instances a stream assimilative capacity study, or equivalent, has been carried out in conjunction with these process design studies to establish what effluent criteria must be met prior to the selection of the treatment alternative.

CENSOL & POLLUTECH and its staff have a vast number of years experience, conducting the required work for the enhanced operational audit as detailed in the technical proposal. We have described in the following sections the experience of the Company as well as individual staff members involved in the project that make us ideally suited to complete these assignments. In addition, our firm is 100 % Canadian owned and operated and has no vested interest in any follow-up civil or mechanical engineering services that might result from this study.

CENSOL & POLLUTECH is a process engineering firm, consisting of a mixed array of chemists, biologists, chemical engineers, civil engineers, environmental engineers, and environmental technologists. We have no vested interest in the follow-up work arising out of our environmental and/or process engineering studies, nor do we have any interest in follow-up chemical sales or equipment. Similarly, no companies have any such interest in CENSOL & POLLUTECH. We are supported by a fully integrated chemical and analytical laboratory at our Oakville Head Office, as well as a biological testing at our Regional Office in Sarnia, Ontario.

There are two key items of experience required to execute this program properly. Firstly, an established reputation with respect to the completion of environmental study reports which integrates effluent requirements with process needs, and secondly a demonstrated experience with process treatability studies. Details of these items and other services offered by Pollutech are provided in the following sections of this proposal. Detailed references on any one of these project components are available upon request.

Establishment of appropriate effluent criteria is very often a critical component of the process studies conducted to evaluate the suitability of the wastewater treatment facilities. Generally, the approach is to establish what quality of effluent is required from the water pollution control plant to meet the MOE Blue Book criteria, a process which is often undertaken under the auspices of the Class Environmental Assessment process. Staff from CENSOL & POLLUTECH have been involved in numerous assimilative capacity studies and/or class environmental assessment studies that have involved the detailed evaluation and establishment of effluent criteria. A clear understanding of the process followed in establishing the effluent criteria is an essential component of a process operational audit and is highly dependent on achieving specified effluent criteria. Typical examples of assessment studies conducted by the CENSOL & POLLUTECH team include the following:

Numerous other evaluations have been completed dealing with the establishment of effluent criteria, and the proceeding is intended to represent examples of the variation of projects undertaken by the CENSOL & POLLUTECH team.

The CENSOL & POLLUTECH teams’ experienced and capable team of engineers and technologists can undertake any problem related to liquid waste treatment, including treatment process design work for both industrial and municipal effluents, taking a project from initial conceptual stages and providing guidance to those implementing the process design and construction phase. Typical services offered by Pollutech in this regard include:

Over the past decade CENSOL & POLLUTECH have found one of our major demands to be in the area of "fine-tuning" or "performance upgrading" of existing waste treatment facilities. CENSOL & POLLUTECH have established an excellent reputation in this field, and has proven on several occasions that an expenditure for "fine-tuning" can easily result in cost savings that exceed professional fees by over three hundred percent.

On several occasions the studies have demonstrated that through the utilization of these services, it is possible to significantly reduce or postpone treatment plant expansions, both in industry and municipal services. Several supporting case studies are available for those who wish to review our capabilities in this field further.

Technological advancement has enabled desk-top computer modeling to be used extensively to simulate the dispersion of contaminants in both effluent discharges and atmospheric emissions. CENSOL & POLLUTECH have undertaken to translate numerous MACRO based models to MICRO computer systems for the day-to-day use of the project team. Where existing models are not computerized, staff have created a number of models using FORTRAN, BASIC and LOTUS systems.

Typical computer modeling projects undertaken by Pollutech include the following:

An integral part of the computer modeling program to determine contaminant discharge is the collection of data points for computer inputs. This involves a great deal of historical review and field work to document flows, contaminants, and climatic conditions. As the reliability of both computer hardware and software increases, the CENSOL & POLLUTECH team is advancing to provide a complete service in the field of computer modeling.

Steadily increasing needs for environmental protection of natural waterways has led to significantly more stringent criteria for effluent and receiving water quality. Many projects conducted by the CENSOL & POLLUTECH team now call for the establishment of water quality criteria prior to the design of effluent treatment systems.

In several instances, the receiving water standards are set by the regulatory officials. In specific instances, these criteria must conform to set minimum standards, or alternatively, the contaminant levels may be set by the study team. Close cooperation between the client, The CENSOL & POLLUTECH teams’ resource scientists, and the regulatory body must be maintained to ensure the formulation of acceptable limits.

Tasks undertaken in the review and development of a water resource evaluation include:

A complete water resource evaluation can be a time consuming task involving detailed flow monitoring, complex analytical testing, site specific benthic studies, historical reviews of flows and contaminants and negotiations with regulatory officials. The end result is development of effluent criteria.

THE CENSOL & POLLUTECH TEAMS’ PROJECT TEAM

The staff of CENSOL & POLLUTECH are well qualified to complete assignments for enhanced environmental audits at industrial and municipal treatment facilities. We have described in the following paragraphs the individual team members and their related experience that would be directly applicable to this job.

The Project Director would be Mr. Richard V. Laughton, President of CENSOL & POLLUTECH. Mr. Laughton would be responsible for setting the overall technical strategy for the execution of the operational audit and would be directly responsible for day-to-day discussions with Regional Municipality of Halton, Environment Canada and/or the Ontario Ministry of the Environment, as the occasions arose. Mr. Laughton has over 15 years direct hands-on experience in conducting pilot and full scale plant studies leading to process design and has actively participated in numerous environmental study reports under the Class Environmental Assessment Process. Mr. Laughton's particular experience which is directly related to this project can best be described as follows:

In addition to these major studies, Mr. Laughton has been actively involved in laboratory pilot and full scale work at numerous municipal and industrial facilities across Canada. He has participated internationally in the testing of marine biological waste water treatment systems, for Environment Canada and Canada Coast Guard, and process design for sewage treatment and ocean outfalls in the Caribbean.

Mr. Laughton's direct hands-on experience with biological nitrification facilities is clearly demonstrated through the past programs, which include the following:

The Senior Process Engineer responsible for the day-to-day operations of the operational audit, including program design, implementation, operation, data acquisition and reporting will be Mr. Greg Brown. Mr. Brown's principle role at Pollutech is to oversee the Process Engineering Group responsible for laboratory pilot and full scale evaluations. In that capacity Greg has gained several years experience in hands-on operations of all facilities, involving numerous biological and physical/chemical processes and combinations thereof. In particular Greg's most relevant experience is as follows:

Mr. Laughton and Mr. Brown have worked together on numerous projects to prepare technical cases contrary to standard Ministry of the Environment technology, relevant to Certificates of Approval. They have successfully worked together to achieve the Certificate of Approval for the combined physical/chemical biological facilities at the City of Welland, as well as those for the Port Dalhousie Water Pollution Control Plant. Ongoing projects at the Town of Milton Water Pollution Control Plant and the Town of Carleton Place Water Pollution Control Plant are in the final rounds of negotiations with the Ministry, with respect to obtaining Certificates of Approval far outside the standard approach suggested by the Ministry of the Environment. In as much as it is essential to prepare a sound technical case it is also an equal requirement to be able to present this information to the Ministry of the Environment in a manner that gains the support of the Ministry of the Environment technical staff to ensure that the process can be carried through to the certification stage.

Whenever possible, the best approach to the design of a waste treatment system for an industrial effluent or the addition or change of a municipal sewage treatment plant, is to conduct treatability studies on samples of the actual effluent. This is necessary in order to select the most suitable and economical treatment process, to define the optimum process design variables, and to confirm over a sufficiently long operating period that the performance of the system will meet the specified effluent criteria. To this end, CENSOL & POLLUTECH have developed a number of unique bench-scale process simulators for treatability studies on either industrial or municipal effluents.

These include both biological and physical/chemical treatability units. Some are suitable for bench-scale laboratory studies while others are readily adaptable to on-site pilot studies. Some of the treatment processes which CENSOL & POLLUTECH have simulated in the course of a process design investigation include the following:

The utilization of laboratory scale biological reactors would be utilized in this project if it became obvious that minor changes in plant operations were required to provide for the effluent conditions specified. We believe that the testing completed to date on the Burlington facility at The CENSOL & POLLUTECH teams’ Oakville laboratory have already indicated that biological nitrification is possible. Additional costs associated with laboratory modeling have not been included in this proposal.

Where the results of bench scale testing have indicated that a specific treatment process, or a select group of treatment processes, can offer effective treatment, a pilot plant project may be warranted to:

Pollutech maintains a wide selection of process tanks and mixers for general pilot plant programs. For specific projects, we arrange for the delivery, installation, start-up and testing of manufacturers' pilot units. For many applications, the pilot plant is a segment of an existing treatment process which CENSOL & POLLUTECH have modified. Alternatively, the complete system may be operated under the test mode conditions.

Pollutech will arrange for all equipment and services and negotiate any regulatory approvals required. The client's staff is involved in the review of the pilot test to provide operator familiarity and management approval. This participation leads to a better understanding of both the need for and results of the pilot plant test program.

The CENSOL & POLLUTECH teams’ central laboratory in Oakville contains all of the facilities necessary for executing projects in the environmental field. In addition, a permanent laboratory in Sarnia, Ontario is maintained. The Sarnia lab can provide analytical services and both routine and customized fish toxicity work as well as a wide range of other biological evaluations. Together these labs offer services and facilities for:

CENSOL & POLLUTECH have a substantial biological facility in Sarnia capable of evaluating the toxicity of various effluents and studying their effects on the natural stream or lake ecology. This facility is equipped to conduct benthic surveys of the bottom fauna in a water course. Qualified biology specialists capable of interpreting the results are an active part of the CENSOL & POLLUTECH team.

The Oakville laboratory contains the necessary equipment for routine MOE, AWWA or ASTM test procedures for liquid and solid analysis. In addition, specialized equipment, is available for more complex analyses.

The laboratory group offers a wide range of analytical services on water, wastewater, leachate, sludge, soil and sediment samples. In addition to providing analytical services for the day-to-day projects underway in the other groups, this group can act as over load capacity for clients who either do not have laboratory facilities, or whose facilities are not capable of handling additional volumes of work.

CENSOL & POLLUTECH have available a network of highly specialized chemical analysts having both the requirements and expertise required for even the most advanced and/or precise analysis. Analytical teams are drawn together, under our management, to assemble together the "best" expertise for each individual job. In this regard, The CENSOL & POLLUTECH teams’ senior staff keep well versed in the most up-to-date analytical procedures and environmental regulations in Ontario, the rest of Canada, and in the United States.

Major projects recently undertaken that utilize a significant amount of detailed analytical work include:

When the need arises, the laboratory group is available to assist in the development of new or modified analytical procedures. This service is frequently required in industry, where existing methodology is not adopted to the "witches brews" that are often associated with effluent samples.

Our laboratory group has recently completed an extensive program in conjunction with CCIW and the MOE with respect to NDMA in drinking water. Several other cooperative analytical programs and/or round robin testing programs have been completed with the MOE, Regional Municipalities (Niagara, Halton, Muskoka, Hamilton-Wentworth, Ottawa-Carleton).