Introducing constructed wetlands to Niagara as a way to purify sewage and other
polluted water is an exciting new development, and one we hope will gain momentum
here.
Wednesday's Standard featured a story on EastDell Estates winery in Beamsville,
which found itself in a difficult situation. It was spending thousands of dollars
to truck its sewage and winery wash water to treatment plants. EastDell was
nowhere near municipal sewer hookups, and its rolling landscape made it impossible
to install the traditional septic bed, which requires a flat terrain.
After considering the alternatives, the owners decided to spend what they would
lay out for a septic bed on a constructed wetland.
Such man-made wetlands provide a more efficient version of the processes nature
uses to break down excess nutrients and unfriendly bacteria. In EastDell's case,
wastewater runs from the septic tank into a series of three 'cells' one metre
deep. Inside are cattails growing in layers of sand and gravel. The water travels
through each cell in turn, emerging from the natural biological processes clean
enough to be re-used flushing the restaurant's toilets and urinals.
The winery saves $2,000 to $3,000 annually on its water bills and figures it
will save $6,000 a year in trucking costs to send diluted grape juice to a water
treatment plant. That should help in recouping the cost of constructing the
wetland - between $75,000 and $100,000 - something that wouldn't be possible
if the same money had been spent on the traditional tile bed.
The same approach to waste water treatment was used by Vineland Estates and
Niagara Under Glass, two other well-known names in the region. Clearly, this
is not fly-by-the-seat-of-the-pants technology with no basis in reality. The
process uses are natural ones, with the added benefit that a wetland doesn't
break down or require the kind of maintenance a typical sewer system does.
The problems caused by operating such wetlands in Canada's cold climate seem
to have been overcome, and Canadians may become more receptive to an idea that
has taken hold in warmer U.S. climates.
W hope that day comes soon. Use of wetlands to process waste water seems to
us a much more environmentally friendly way to deal with sewage and polluted
water than what we have used in the past.
Changing the minds of city councilors may prove difficult, as was seen when
Niagara-on-the-Lake town council decided in march to choose an Oakville firm
to build a traditional, big-pipe sewer line to carry St.Davids' sewage to Niagara
Falls for treatment.
A constructed wetland had been an alternative proposed by Edgar Lemon, a retired
professor of environmental physics at Cornell University. But council decided
to spend $8.4 million on a sanitary sewer system. Critics argued it would have
been cheaper to treat the water naturally at the source, rather than pump it
so far to be processed at a sewage treatment plant. Perhaps the real test will
be in determining which option can be expanded the most economically to accommodate
growing populations. As for us, we're putting our money on wetlands, a system
nature perfected millions of years ago.
