Kerry McCluskey
Northern News Services

IQALUIT (Aug 09/99) - The all too familiar stench of raw sewage will soon be a distant memory for the residents of Iqaluit.

That's what Denis Bedard, the town's director of engineering and planning, said during a walkabout around the site that's set to house the capital's new state-of-the-art sewage treatment facility.

Designed to eliminate the current sewage lagoon and the practice of pumping virtually untreated sewage into Frobisher Bay -- some of which contains up to 15 million PPM (parts per million) of the toxic bacteria faecal coliform -- the plant operates using a series of high tech filters. Bedard said the plant would significantly reduce the bacteria to approximately 10,000 PPM.

"Nowhere in the Northwest Territories or Nunavut do you see a plant like this. It's going to be a kind of showpiece," said Bedard.

On the municipality's backburner for the last several years, construction on the needed plant finally began last month after the Government of Nunavut committed to finance the multimillion dollar shortfall.

"There was almost in excess of $3 million left to be paid on the project for next year. What held us up in terms of committing to the contractors was the government commitment," said Bedard, who, after receiving the GN's letter of financial support, was able to finalize the contract and move forward on the project. Mayor Jimmy Kilabuk was expected to sign off the contract last week.

Workers are well under way with site excavation and the laying of the plant's foundation and Bedard estimated that the new system would be fully up and running by December.

"Our contract requires Hill Murray (the contractors) to run the plant for three months on their own to make sure it meets discharge requirements. We'll probably take it over in April," said Bedard.

He explained that the ailing lagoon would eventually be decommissioned and the sewage it housed would be run through the plant and treated. Most of the lagoon would then be filled in.

"We want to keep at least a portion of it as an overflow emergency system, just in case there's a power shortage or whatever," said Bedard.

The project is expected to ring in at slightly more than $7 million.