Rethinking Lifestyle

It is exciting to follow developments with respect to the Landmark and Niverville lagoon reclamation projects. Both are using swamp vegetation to remove phosphorous from their lagoons. Equally exciting are trials at Providence University College to use dried cattails to heat the campus. All three projects have been reported by The Carillon and other local media.

These reclamation technologies are intended to address the challenge faced by all municipalities; namely, how to dispose of phosphate.

There was a time when all cities, all towns, simply flushed the chemicals found in their liquid waste into the nearest waterway, implicitly assuming it was gone once they had done that. The concern at that time was with coliform bacteria; bacteria that spread disease, and it was assumed that if the liquid sewage going into the waterway was coliform free, if it had been treated to that effect; it was safe. And to a significant extent it was. Thanks to this approach to liquid waste-water treatment we, in the industrialized countries, have more or less removed the threat of disease spread through human waste.

But gradually we have come to realize that there are chemicals in our liquid waste that are not as benign as we had assumed.

First we came to the realization that nitrogen in waste water resulted in an undesirable algae bloom in waterways. Nitrates in water also had other negative effects. This was not so hard to deal with, because there are ways of converting nitrates in water to free nitrogen which is what the air we breathe is mostly made up of. So we progressed and we discharged liquid free of coliform bacteria and free of nitrates into our waterways.

Then came 1999. A new algae bloom occurred on Lake Winnipeg and this one was directly attributed to phosphorous discharge into that lake. Lake Winnipeg was dying, we were told. Manitoba was galvanized into action. Farmers and municipalities are no longer allowed to discharge phosphorous laden water into waterways. Manitobans suddenly realized that water with chemicals in it, particularly water carrying phosphorus was not benign.

So towns and cities in Manitoba now need to deal with the phosphorus in their lagoons. That phosphorus comes primarily from the food we eat. It is added to the liquid waste stream when we flush the toilet. Conventionally, today, that phosphate is dealt with by adding alum to the liquid in the lagoon. The alum precipitates the phosphorus so it settles in the bottom; and the liquid, which is now phosphorus free can be drained off. The remaining sediment is buried in our landfills.

But this is expensive and many of us wonder about the long term effect of that buried phosphorous. As we seek to leave a better world for our children and grandchildren, is it really wise to simply bury our unwanted phosphorus?

So I find it refreshing that these local municipalities are exploring other ways of dealing with this phosphorous. They are likely to save money, but more important, they are potentially turning a pollutant into a highly desired, potentially scarce product.