City’s Largest Infrastructure Project Happening at Woodward Avenue Water Treatment Plant

For more details, please continue reading below…

Hello Ward 8 Neighbours,

With our office hosting the upcoming Speaking Volumes – The Chedoke Creek Spill event taking place soon on March 12, we thought it would be worthwhile to dig a little deeper into the largest single capital infrastructure investment in the City of Hamilton’s history.

The City  is currently undertaking the Clean Harbour Project, an ambitious endeavour with support from the provincial and federal governments to enhance water quality in Hamilton Harbour by upgrading the Woodward Avenue Wastewater Treatment Plant.

The Woodward Avenue Water Treatment plant began operations in 1964 as a primary treatment plant, with solids digestion and effluent disinfection, to return the contaminated water back into the water cycle with minimal environmental impact.

In 2008, the City completed the Woodward Avenue WWTP Service Area Environmental Study Report to determine a plan for upgrades to the Woodward facility to manage wet weather flows, provide treatment capacity, and meet treatment objectives defined by the Hamilton Harbour Remedial Action Plan, the Ministry of Environment, Conservation and Parks and the Federal Environmental Protection Act.

A major goal of the Woodward upgrades is to meet the Hamilton Harbour Remedial Action Plan, calling for a reduction of ammonia flowing into the harbour. As the Director of Water for the City of Hamilton explains in this great piece “ammonia in high concentrations is toxic to flora and fauna in aquatic ecosystems.”

The $340 million dollar upgrade involves several sub-projects including the replacement of the existing raw wastewater pumping station with a new station, the expansion of secondary treatment to allow for nitrification of the ammonia, addition of tertiary cloth filtration media for tertiary treatment, construction of a new energy centre complete with standby power and construction of a new chlorine contact tank and outfall to Red Hill Creek.

“It is estimated that approximately 6,100 tonnes of ammonia will be removed from the aquatic ecosystem over the next 10 years of post-construction.” – Hamilton Water

Construction on this project began in 2019 and is slated to end by 2021. With a new 1,700 Megalitres per Day (MPD) capacity (currently 1,350 MPD) and the new disk filtration tertiary treatment facility , it is expected that these components will help reduce 500 tonnes of phosphorous and 15,000 tonnes over a 10-year period from seeping into the harbour, stated the Director of Hamilton Water.

With tremendous growth happening around the City, Hamilton Water will continue to monitor wastewater flows to determine if another expansion is needed; but that won’t be until after 2026.

Questions or concerns?

If you have any questions or concerns, you can contact our office here.